Zero till machinery maker Seed Hawk did some soul searching before it decided to market a line of tillage tools.
“Tillage is not something we take lightly at Seed Hawk,” said company spokesperson Trent Meyer.
“The benefits of reduced tillage are well known and proven.”
However, wet conditions in Western Canada and the U.S. Great Plains have created a need for the Langbank, Sask., company’s customers to manage moisture and heavy loads of harvest debris.
Read Also
European wheat production makes big recovery
EU crop prospects are vastly improved, which could mean fewer canola and durum imports from Canada.
“The Vderstat machine makes a very good case for handling just the top inch or so of the soil, especially when conditions are difficult,” Meyer said about the single-pass tillage tool.
Vertical and selective tillage and residue management is gaining popularity.
As well, many producers who rely on minimum till and no till seeding for continuous cropping have turned to fall harrowing to manage crop residues in cereal stubble.
“Some prairie farmers are seeing the benefits of being able to get on their fields faster with (selective tillage),” Meyer said.
“It has been something growers in wetter regions of the world such as the (U. S.) Midwest and Europe have been working with for some time.”
Vderstad of Sweden builds a variety of seeding and tillage implements for the international market and is a minority partner with Seed Hawk.
The Vderstad Carrier line-up offers a combination of harrowing, disc cultivation and chopping and packing.
“It leaves a high quality seed bed for spring,” said Seed Hawk president Pat Beaujot.
“And it deals with some production issues farmers are having right now.”
The Carrier machines do their job by harrowing straw and harvest debris. Large-coil sprung tines running just below the soil’s surface distribute the plant material into a pair of notched discs that, at 7.5 m.p.h., pulverize it and spread it across the width of the machine.
These hardened, conical discs are built to wear down while remaining sharp and keeping their necessary curved shape, which throws soil and straw to the sides of the worked run.
The design is similar to the latest vertical tillage Soil Razor discs made by Ingersoll Tillage Group of Hamilton, Ont. They are currently found on machines by Sunflower and Krause.
Meyer said the design means the Vderstad machines require little maintenance because wear keeps the discs sharp and functional.
Soil disruption is kept between 1 3/16 and four inches, depending on how the machine is set. The heavy weight of the machine, from 500 to 740 pounds per sq. foot, ensures it will cut into dry soil when necessary and provide the force for the packing stage.
A set of steel packers compress the soil and harvest debris once it is evened out, ensuring solid plant material and soil contact.
“This accelerates the biological breakdown of the straw and provides a level and easy to manage seed bed in the spring,” he said.
The packers have steel mud scrapers that are cut to match the profile of the packing discs and suspended away from the discs for clearance.
The machine is offered in working widths of 27 or 40 feet. The smaller unit can cover 18 acres per hour at 6.2 m.p.h., while the larger can cover 27 acres per hour.
“You can run at about (9 m.p.h.) and get over a lot of land in a day,” said Meyer.
“This isn’t like going out and cultivating. The 27 foot machine can be pulled easily with 250 horsepower. It scratches at the surface of the field.”
packers are scraped free of mud by suspended scrapers cut to the profile of the packers.
ABOVE RIGHT: The Carrier 820 27 foot tillage tool was on display. BELOW: Conical discs keep their shape and sharpness as they wear down. Rubber mounts, at left, reduce shock to the discs and the machine’s frame.
