EC MN - Hour North of 'The Cities' | After the demo I was less impressed with strip till compared to what I thought it would be. Granted I won't see what the strips look like in the spring, but penetration was an issue on the coulter style where the combine tracks were, and clods were definitely present on the shank machines in the tracks as well. I know adjustments can be made to make a better strip, and I'm sure it can be perfected for any soil-type. The shank unit would give you a better chance for a good fall strip, but the coulter will let you go in the spring if you weren't able to strip in the fall.
I think our soils would flow A LOT easier on these rigs and bring up less clods, and this was noticeable from one row unit to the next (mainly wheel track issues). This is where I think fall strips are close to a must on my list to be able to be happy with strip till (more time to let the strip settle out and clods break down), but in some soils spring strips would work great. Penetration is the first thing to be concerned with if you want your strip till to work, otherwise, don't bother.
The main thing that I took away from the demo was the information that Jodi showed on soil tilth and quality. If you can have a very well structured soil with minimal tillage, and not sacrifice yield, you can play ball with the big guys. Strip till seams to be geared towards continuous corn acres where some tillage is needed to warm up a seedbed, but yet maintain good structure similar to no-till. If you are able to put N down in the fall for your corn acres, along with your P&K, then strip till looks a lot more appealing to me.
Bruce brought up a good point about getting the stalks to either be chopped or rolled in the fall to promote breakdown of residue and flow through the strip till rig to prevent plugging. He also thinks rolling the stalks would be as beneficial for breakdown as the above mentioned practices to get the stalks in contact with soil to break down.
I can see in the future that our farm will be strip tilling, but if we can get a good soil structure with our current equipment, I think we will be ahead as far as profitability. Back to the plan of band our P&K with the
The demo was priceless to see how the different rigs do side-by-side in the same soil, and the information I learned can be applied to practices other than strip till.
Lance |
Thanks Gerywolf & all
