Thursday, May 19, 2011

Tillage experiment...

We're testing a vertical tillage tool from Kongskilde (disclosure: I am on the board of directors).  It seems too good to be true, but this machine is allowing us to get into fields 1-2 days earlier. Nobody else is running beside us, and the finisher was a real mistake.

We're running about 2-3 inches deep, 9 mph, 4 degrees gang angle.  So far it opens up the thin dry layer and doesn't produce clods.  Our hope is to follow a day later with the planter.  It levels extremely well.

In the fall we'll use in on cornstalks.

I'll let you know.  But we're convinced we need to try something as the last four springs have not given us long stretches in between rains, and then you get what we got the last 6 days- a s-l-o-w storm that prevents drying even when you don't get much rain.

Coupled with more tile, I hope we're expanding our planting windows.

It's what you do when you agree with John Huntsman on climate change.

The right smacked Ryan and Gingrich into Correct Thinking. Let's see how long his belief holds up.

6 comments:

Tim said...

The Kongskilde link is not correct.

John Phipps said...

Thanks, Tim. I think it's fixed now.

Anonymous said...

John, if you like that you would love a Salford -regards-kevin

John Phipps said...

Kevin:

Yeh, but I don't get a discount from them.

Derek said...

Several guys in our neighborhood are using these. Looks to make an excellent seedbed with one pass along with the advantages you mention for wetter ground. But these look to me like no more than a glorified disk. In my quest to be a viable small farmer, I'm wondering about retrofitting my old IH 470 disk with similar blades and a rolling basket. It already tills more lightly and makes less clods than most newer disks.

Anonymous said...

we used our Landoll alot this spring--at 9 mph a bit of waving the soil but we totally like the shallow seedbed prep
steve