Letham Shank Glossary

Common terms used in Agriculture and the Countryside.

Dagging

Removing soiled fleece from the rear of sheep. This prevents contamination of the fleece at clipping time.

Dessicate

To dry out. In a cropping sense, dessication usually means to apply a total herbicide to speed up the ripening and drying process.

Dipping

Dipping (sheep) is used to control external parasites such as blowfly and ticks. The sheep is immersed in a bath of water with a persistant insecticide mixed in.

Direct Drilling

Placing seed into soil which has not been cultivated by using a heavier than normal seed drill which is able to penetrate in hard/dry conditions. Also known as No-till drilling.

Ditch

A water channel dug to assist drainage or the mark a boundary. In this part of the world most are bordered by a hedge.

Draft

The effort required to pull an implement through the soil. Also the control on a modern tractor which keeps this load constant by raising or lowering the implement.

Drain

In the field sense a drain is a clay or plastic porous pipe buried at around 1 metre deep and covered with approximately 300mm gravel to collect and remove water from farmland.

Draw

To make a draw with livestock is to sort fat from thin, ewes from tups, etc. Drawing lambs for market would be to select those with correct weight and conformation.

Drill (seed)

An implement used to place an exact amount of seed at a desired depth. This can be from 3kg/ha for canola to 250kg/ha for wheat.

Dykeback

A local term used to denote the area round the outside of a field which never gets full sun or wind because of the hedge or wall (dyke).