I have tried no till enough to believe it can only be use situationally in my area. Typically I would call our farm aggresive minimum till.  I have dabbled in corn off and on over the  years but it looks as though the time for our area to raise corn has come. While we (our area) will not be a force in the corn market, those that are currently raising corn are raising rents to the point a  wheat, beet, soy rotation cannot compete for land. I dont want more I just want to hang on to what we have. We are looking forward to being a multi generational farm that survives time and transition, I believe we are in a position to do so without ever having to look to major expansion. Faith and family comes first in our core values.

  SO; knowing we will have an issue with stalks in our heavy soils I need to get rid of as much stalk as possible. I am driving from North dakota to texas and back driving a different route each way. Since I am on the road currently I will not be able to continue a dialog but am looking for a reason to not plow (I am one of the few who still own one that has not been used in many yrs). In my travels I havn't seen a plowed field unless I passed it after dark. What I did see is many individuals trying to get rid of as much stalk as possible using smaller rippers or many passes to accomplish what a plow can do in one. Obvoiusly I would probably disk after the plow but still a ecotiger once is no wider than a plow and most were using two pass with the tiger and still a sizer of some kind in the mix. I did see a significant and better job of strip till but it has been tried and failed in my area. If I enjoyed driving I would do this every year and highly recomend it, No backyarditis when you get home. This is the third and final (hopefully) last time I do this, I really dont like driving.

I, just like every mature farmer liked it when we parked the plow but It is a good tool for some situations. SO why not plow corn stubble? Any and all comments would be appreciated and will be looked at after the days travels. Thanks Thor   


By the way I am selling wheat when I get home WW looks pretty good and significantly more of it then last april.