FARGO, N.D. – A strip till implement designer has focused his attention on devout zero till farmers who don’t tolerate black soil on their field surfaces.
The Strip Incorporator, which is expected to be made available to producers this spring by Dean Carstens’ Twin Diamond Industries of Minden, Nebraska, manages to merge no-till and strip-till.
“This is an alternative to banding, and it’s specifically for no-till farmers,” Carstens said.
“Farmers looking for alternatives to wheat are finding they need to adapt new seeding technology if they want to grow corn and bean crops profitably. The Incorporator is for those die-hard no-till farmers who don’t want anything to do with true strip-till, but they do want the ability to warm the soil in the spring.”
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He said the implement will be of interest to producers who push cropping boundaries with new varieties of corn and beans that require a shorter growing season with fewer heat units.
The prospect of growing more high-value crops farther north and west is appealing to prairie farmers, but the seeding technology that has served so well for the past two decades may not work for these two crops.
It’s a dilemma for the thousands of veteran zero-till farmers who saw their input costs drop and their yields increase after switching to zero till.
Carstens said it’s difficult trying to convince them to take a step back from true no-till production.
One of Twin Diamond’s main targets will be zero till producers in the Red River Valley and other regions to the west with heavy clay soil where it is counterproductive to pull clay and gumbo up to the surface.
Carstens said there are still many frontiers to explore in seed and fertilizer placement if producers are willing to expand their thinking about what’s possible.
“The Incorporator doesn’t till the soil in the traditional sense of the word,” he said.
“There’s no shank or opener to penetrate the soil. True strip till implements work anywhere from four to 10 inches deep. In fact, one of the more popular brands can work at 12 inches, and a lot of guys run them that deep. Now that’s what I call real tillage. We don’t do that.”
Twin Diamond field research shows that disturbance deeper than two inches can do more harm than good, especially when it starts to bring B and C horizon soil to the surface and mix it with premium, productive topsoil.
Strip till machines will ribbon in wet conditions and bring up clods of gumbo.
“Once you get mud and gumbo on the trash manager, nothing works anymore,” he said.
“We’ve found that by running our front coulter shallow, we avoid ribboning. That’s why the Incorporator only touches the top two inches. Just rough up the surface. Now, some folks may still call that tillage, but it’s more like a harrowing action. And it’s only in the eight inch wide strip.”
Shrouds on the machine keep soil and chemicals from flying across the field.
The sides of the box also serve as a mounting bracket for the four bearings that support two shafts running inside. Each shaft is fitted with a set of spring tines.
The front tines contact the surface as the implement is pulled forward. Their shaft rotates in conjunction with the speed of the implement. A chain sprocket at one end of the shaft powers a chain that drives a smaller sprocket for the rear set of tines.
In essence, the front tines serve as a motor to spin the rear tines, which do all the work. The ratio front to back is 1:2. Every revolution of the front shaft creates two revolutions at the rear.
Liquid or granular fertilizer and pre-plant chemicals are dropped at the front of the box and are uniformly incorporated to a depth of two inches, across the eight-inch wide strip. All residues within this strip get chewed up and mixed in with the soil.
“There are no hydraulic motors or electronics involved. It’s all very simple,” he said.
“But you can see you’ve got to have those boxes to contain the soil and fertilizer.”
Carstens said the prototypes have stainless steel boxes, but he think that’s an unnecessary expense. For the production version, he expects to use mild steel with powder coat or epoxy paint to resist the corrosive affect of granular urea. The system is not compatible with anhydrous ammonia because it works with only two inches of soil.
The implement has fewer parts than most strip tillers. Once changes are made to the prototype, it will have a coulter with a two-inch depth band at the front of the machine.
“The heavier your soil, the more important it is to keep that front coulter shallow, especially in the Red River Valley.”
Strip tillage often follows a cereal crop in the rotation, so Carstens said it’s important that the lead coulter be able to cut wheat residue.
The next tool in the lineup is the pair of Sunco trash managers, followed by the chemical applicators and then the box of tines.
Carstens said he leaves it up to each customer to decide what packers, if any, to use following the box of tines because there are so many variables in soil conditions and so many packers and conditioners available.
When it comes to product carts, Carstens likes the quick change unit from Montag in Iowa. It is designed so the producer can switch quickly between dry and liquid.
“Economic reality will someday force us to use whatever form of fertilizer is cheapest at the moment. Rather than own a complete dry rig plus a liquid rig, I think the smart move is to have a system that lets you change tanks back and forth quickly.”
Carstens said the Strip Incorporator price isn’t definite yet, but he expects it to be less than $2,000 US per row unit.
For more information, contact Dean Carstens at 308-832-0701 or visit www.twindiamond.com.
