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Driftless SW Wisconsin | Bruce,
Personally I recommend the separate strip till pass AHEAD of the planter, especially in Michigan. There is usually a wider time window for stripping than there is for planting. You can run the strip till bar in the spring anywhere from a couple hours to a couple weeks ahead of the planter.
This has several advantages over trying to do everything on the planter:
1) With strip till (esp spring strip till) the soil has a chance to "grey off" and get fit before the planter comes in. You are not planting into cold wet mud, even with high residue. No planter mounted attachment can provide the TIME required for the soil to get fit, almost like a pass with a field cultivator or harrow.
2) By putting down your fertilizer in a band with the strip till machine, it is generally being shown that you can reduce fertilizer application rates somewhat without reducing yields. (no offense, Ron)
3) By putting fertilizer down ahead of the planter you get fertilizer OFF of the planter. There is a much narrower time window for optimum planting then strip tilling. When the time is right to plant corn, put seed in the hoppers and just plant corn. Keep the planter moving, not refilling fertilizer messing with hoses and nozzles etc.
I think a 6 row bar ahead of the planter is a great idea in a northern area such as yours. It is also very helpful for smaller farm operations where time is at a premium in the spring.
As far as side dressing with strip till bar, it is possible but not really very practical. Often there is so much residue between the rows right after planting that you are better off going through with a simple mounted bar with coulters or standard nh3/liquid knives For side dressing I would suggest you consider running every row OR every other row with either a single disc fertilizer coulter like our 3004 or a standard knife with coulter ahead.
Or just put all of your fertilizer down with the strip till pass as I did this spring. If you use 28% down one side it does not get mixed in and is safe to plant immediately. Or you could use some 10-34-0 down the middle which DOES get mixed in and have that be your starter. Or tank mix the 28% and 10-34-0 and split the flow putting maybe 15 gal down the middle mixed with the soil and 20-30 gal on the side not mixed. See the strip till guide book link on our home page for explanation of the different nozzle location options.
The more I think of it, eliminate the side dress. If you want to split your N application you could put 28% in the spray over the top on a post spray. Just a thought.
Best of luck.
This way just run Trashwheels alone on your planter wit ht he standard rubber closing wheels. The strip is almost like conventional ground anyway.
The economics of this system work out very well. Low hp requirements.
Jim at Dawn
I posted a picture of a 6 row mounted system a couple days ago. We have a couple 6 row customers I can think of who just mounted our row units on a mounted planter bar with the worn out row units removed. This will also have markers if needed.
Greywolf - thanks for your input. We are going to use a different mounting bracket for our mounted strip till bars (different form the system you saw - identical to the 16 row shown at Waseca) which will bring the row units quite bit further forward and reduce the 3-point lifting requirements. These will also have our hydraulic adjustable down pressure system. There is no change ot the Pluribus row unit itself, just the forward mounting bracket..
Edited by Jim 8/11/2006 14:01
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Jim @ Dawn
