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Iowa | So coming from someone who has basically done a one spring tillage pass for quite a while... I'll give my thoughts. So for around 30-40 years the ground going from soy to corn was just a field cultivator pass in spring about 4in deep and plant corn. Going from corn to soy, since about 2012 my dad used a single pass in spring with a sunflower 1435 disk around 4.5in deep, it's a heavy disk but has closer spaced disks so it chewed up residue pretty well and for a disk it left a pretty smooth finish if you kept it below 4.5mph.
About 4 years ago I switched the sunflower 1435 for a 6631. Its sold as a VT, but it does have a gang angle. I looked for the 6631, or a landol 7431 on purpose because they move enough dirt they pin the trash and it doesn't blow around. I'm really happy with the finish and speed/efficiency of this switch. I have tried it in the fall and it didn't seem to work as well as spring.
I honestly started worrying a little about a shallow hard pan, I think the only thing keeping it somewhat out was I side-dress anhydrous 7-8in deep on every row in June.
Last year I switched to strip till from soy to corn instead of the field cultivator. Part of the reason for this was I noticed a yield bump from spring applied anhydrous, but not from urea spread and incorporated with the field cultivator in spring. I could really see a color difference in corn if there was deeper tillage done. I didn't want to go full tillage because the single pass systems we were using had really reduced erosion on our farm. I saw strip till as a good compromise. I got a krause gladiator and pull it around 7 in deep and put my dry in the strip. Using the same amount of fert as before I saw around a 10bu/ac gain over my control area where fert was broadcast and worked in with a field cultivator.
I will also note that the Sunflower vt still pulls up quite a few rocks for me...I have to hammer a few out of the baskets every year along with them in the field. | |
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Switching from conventional tillage to Vertical Tillage?
