Tillage Equipment
Great Plains Manufacturing Inc. has unveiled a new line of narrow transport Disc-O-Vators built on the success of the current Series 8 machines but with a 10-foot transport width.
The first time you meet Tom Harris, he just seems like your average farmer — a down-to-earth, seasoned veteran of up times and down, and always on the lookout to improve his results.
With soil moisture at or above field capacity, it won’t take much spring rain to make fields too wet for good planting. The challenge is to avoid creating compaction. It’s tough to stay out of fields and not work soil until it’s ready this spring, especially when you weren’t able to get tillage done last fall.
More than 100 farmers meeting in Ritzville, Wash., helped set the stage for building “conservation-friendly” deep-furrow drill prototypes to replace existing John Deere HZ and International 150 drills.
Maybe that tough, black dirt out back still works best if you till it. Or maybe you prefer the seedbed you get in your soils when you start with deep tillage, then follow up with some sort of secondary tillage.
With higher yield goals, higher plant populations and aggressive fertilization, you need to manage increased amounts of crop residue to establish productive stands the following year. This is especially important if you are planting corn following corn. Typically, soybeans can tolerate more residue than corn.
After seeing November’s vertical tillage, or v-till, articles, Karl Hess of Conestoga, Pa., shared his own experience. He purchased a used 14-foot disk harrow for $1,200 and converted it for vertical tillage in May 2008 — all for $3,300 to $3,500.
As row crop-budgets tighten and producers cover more acres, it’s important to evaluate each field operation. Data from the Nebraska Farm Business Association indicates that two of the most important factors when evaluating the profitability of the members’ farming enterprises were yields and input costs. The high-profit third of the enterprises were above average on crop yields produced and below average on input costs.
With higher yield goals, higher plant populations and aggressive fertilization, growers need to manage increased amounts of crop residue to establish productive stands the following year.