EC MN - Hour North of 'The Cities' | Been wondering the same thing recently, but would rather go to strip till instead of back to conventional tillage.
Had a side by side of fall ripped corn stalks with a rotary harrow pass in the spring vs standing stalks worked in the spring with a rotary harrow. No yield difference (beans) on the tillage method and the rotary harrowed ground was MUCH firmer in our wet fall ground this year. Did some custom beans this evening and was cutting ruts on 10% of the field. This was fall chiseled, then spring field cultivated followed by a packer. Pretty similar soil type to our fall ripped ground that we had a side by side.
Once we get going on corn, we also have a side by side of spring field cultivated bean stubble next to rotary harrowed bean stubble. Field cultivated looked great early on, but when we went dry for 2 months straight, the rotary harrowed ground seemed to be looking better.
What's the value you have in tillage equipment on hand? 8 row strip till with RTK as your only tillage implement may not be that bad, and RTK has more than one use. If strip till works as good as it does in theory, could sell conventional tillage equipment to offset cost, or check out the EQIP program.
Lance |
Questioning sticking with notill!
