Darren Allen: Reduced cultivations and cover crops delivering gains in wheat establishment trials

There has been no water ponding so far this winter, which is welcome given past yield losses from poor drainage

Darren Allen: Looking ahead, I will have more spring crops in 2026 than usual. Picture: Dan Linehan

This autumn, I continued trials on winter wheat establishment to improve net margin and farm sustainability. I used three methods across different fields: zero-tillage, minimum-tillage and conventional ploughing followed by a one-pass system.

The ploughed wheat was sown on my target date, October 15; the reduced tillage plots were drilled earlier, on September 26.