FARGO, N.D. — A specialized mud cultivator might be considered a joke most years, but then there are years like 2009, when farmers across the northern Great Plains prayed for such an implement.
Kevin Anderson, president of Horsch Anderson Manufacturing in South Dakota, used one this past spring and said it did a good job of drying out soggy lowland areas where he typically receives his best yields.
The cultivator is called the Joker, and Anderson said that without it, his highly productive low areas would not have seen the seed drill in 2009.
His said the weather on his farm was similar to what was seen across most of the Great Plains this year.
“It rained nearly every day and the sun just would not shine. Everyone around here was way behind in seeding all their crops.”
Before the situation turned to complete disaster, Anderson hooked up a prototype mud cultivator he had recently imported from Germany. It was only a three-point hitch unit intended for demo work, but Anderson thought he’d better give it a try in the wet spots.
“It was amazing how quickly the soil dried. Once I saw how well it worked and how fast we could go, I sent it out doing as many on-farm demos as possible.”
He said he kept the cultivator off the side slopes and knolls so it could concentrate on the low areas, which have the potential for high yield only if seeded on time.
Anderson said the idea of a mud cultivator engineered to dry out wet soil came from his German business partner Michael Horst, who began manufacturing them for the European market four years ago. The three-point hitch Anderson used this spring was the first of its kind in North America.
“Europe often has wet cloudy conditions. They’re nearly always battling with mud. The Joker works well on their heavy wet soils, so we brought a small one over here just to see if there’s a fit for it. Obviously there is a fit.
“Farming is a lot like playing poker. It’s a gamble. When you’re right down to the wire and you’ve got only one card left, you want the Joker. He can pull you out of a bind.
“Same thing with farming and mud. When you’re down to the wire and you pull out the Joker, it just might be enough to save your bacon. That’s why Michael named it the Joker.”
Anderson said the cultivator is more than a last ditch desperation machine.
“It does an excellent job of chopping up corn residue, whether the soil is dry or wet. And it does a very good job at manure incorporation, residue sizing and seedbed preparation. The function depends of depth and speed.
“Run deep and fast and you blacken the ground and pulverize the residue. We’ve run at 13 m.p.h. with no problems. Running shallow and slow leaves more residue on the surface and moves less soil.”
Anderson said the spring steel packing wheels function much like the bouncy shoes that make people in TV commercials spring into the air while walking.
“That’s basically what we have for packers. Each packer wheel is quartered, divided into four 90-degree segments. Each segment is an independent piece of spring steel curved to form a 90-degree arc.
“When you bolt all four springs to their mounting arms, you have a flexible 360 degree steel packer. As each spring segment rolls over the soil, the steel arc compresses. When soil contact is finished, it springs back to its original shape.
“The outside diameter of the wheel keeps changing and fluctuating as the wheel turns. The mud pops off as soon as each segment is out of contact with the soil.”
He said a corn producer who farms next to Horst’s farm in Germany designed the spring packer wheels. They also press corn residue into the soil so it doesn’t blow away.
Some cultivators leave corn stalks loose on the surface, where strong wind can roll them into big balls and blow them around the field.
Anderson said the Joker should not be confused with vertical tillage machines on the market.
Horsch made adjustments to the 18-inch diameter concave coulters so it’s more a mixture of vertical and horizontal tillage, he added.
“The problem with true vertical tillage is too much downward pressure on the soil and too much compaction. It becomes a nonaerobic environment. There’s not enough loose soil or air for the roots. So we throw some geometry at the coulters to lift the soil a little bit and let some air get in there for the good of the roots.”
He said the suspension system for the Joker’s working arms is simple. There are no coils, springs or hydraulics. All shock is absorbed by a set of four rubber torsion plugs on each arm.
The swinging arm is attached to a small square tube, which is positioned 90 degrees offset inside a larger square tube. The larger tube is part of the frame.
The four rubber plugs are squeezed into the gaps. Each time an arm swings up or hits a rock, the inner tube rotates against the pressure of the rubber plugs, which absorb the shock.
The 25-foot pull type Joker that Anderson had at the Big Iron farm show in Fargo earlier this fall carries a list price of about $50,000.
He is now building a 40-foot prototype in his factory and expects to produce them this winter.
For more information, contact Kevin Anderson at 605-298-5663 or visit www.horschanderson.com.