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Nebraska | Jim,
I am glad that you did the background check on my AgTalk account, my “especially interesting” post may be my first, but I have been reading this and many other farming forums for quite a while now. This post interested me as I am trying to convince my uncle and grandfather who I work with that strip till is the way to go. Being unable to convince them to purchase a complete machine, I have been looking into the route of building my own similar to Elmfarms situation. My idea was to start with an Orthman cultivator that we currently own on the farm as it seems to be pretty heavy built compared to a lot of other older cultivators. In my situation it has been very hard to persuade my grandfather and uncles 80 + years of experience in conventional tillage practices to take a look at strip tillage. One of the few things that is still appealing to them about strip till is the ability to have a shank style unit that will be able to reach into the “hard pan” and work at breaking that up in the root zone in their words. That is why most of my searching has been into those style of units. If I am able to convince them to try strip tilling it will be done in the fall, God willing.
Greywolf brought up the point of spring deep ripping. Which I would agree is a huge NO from anyone that I know. My only question to Greywolf would be what strip till machines are offering up 18” “ripping” depths, (which seems to be a frequent deep ripping depth for many producers in our area)? Oh and for Greywolf “there” is Hall county Nebraska. From what I have seen there aren’t any companies promoting deep ripping. They all seem to promoting a depth of anywhere from 7-11” depending on your soils characteristics.
Greywolf had said
Past agronomic practice comes into play as well. A very well structured soil profile basically only needs a strip worked 3” deep to provide a bit of drying with a residue free surface to give a better guarantee of seed to soil contact (basically the only reason spring tillage is done in the first place). That structure is not achieved in one year when converting from conventional/mulch till to conservation type tillage.
If the switch from conventional tillage is made to strip tillage, would it not be a benefit to have a shank style machine to use in the fall to begin creating that well structured profile deeper than the 3” depth that he refers to made using a coulter style system? This is assuming that the soil structure or lack thereof in these converted fields is basically still liquefied from the previous maximum tillage practices. This will likely be less of a problem for those who have been intelligently and successfully no tilling for a period of time.
As to my salesman comment Jim, I may have hastily written something that I should have rephrased. Initially looking at many of your posts I can’t help to notice the promotion of your product. But you are also quick to tell people that it will not work in some situations, which helps me to believe that you are definitely on here also to try and help educate others. I do look at some of that promotion as advertising, but advertising that is strategically placed… which is the best kind! You are the only mfg. that I have noticed that is actively using such a great place to inject that knowledge you have been collecting about strip till since 1993. What better way is there to have daily interaction with possible customers around the world? I have also viewed almost every video if not all that Dawn has put on youtube as well. I think you have been a pioneer in the ag industry when it comes to very effectively utilizing many different areas on the internet for getting some of your products out in the worlds view. I think eventually these forums and youtube will be filled with mfg’s that will try to do what you have so effectively done. Hopefully they will try to be as objective and truthful as it seems many of your posts are. I also do not think you are solely on here to promote anything. I have read many of your posts on here that are nowhere near related to strip till or planter attachments. I found your article on vacuum planter history very interesting, as well as many other.
Back to the home built strip till machine that this thread started with. What type of tooling are you looking at using if you are to build your own strip till machine?
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Building a strip till
