We've had a few days of good weather in ILL. Visited a Central ILL customer making fall strips in bean stubble with 2 year old cornstalks still there. This customer is on his third crop with this system.

Dawn Pluribus units on a Kinze 2700 40 ft front fold frame (planter row units were worn out - new use for toolbar).You don't really need this large a tractor for a 16 row but this is what the customer has. One of the few Concord carts in ILL. They put down 10-34-0 and dry fertilizer in some fields at the same time. The tractor fuel usage per area readout was about 0.3 gal/acre. The operator was running between 7 & 8 mph in this field. This is a very efficient system. Actually two words pop up here - efficiency and precision.

They are doing most of their corn on corn in the spring just ahead of the planter as I understand it. The tractor uses rtk auto steer. Strip tilling gets easier once you get into the "system". Soils look great. Interesting is that this customer raises his Trashwheels up a bit in the fall - leaves a bit of bean stubble in the strip. He drops the Trashwheels down when doing spring strip till.

What is remarkable here is the soil structure. Despite the heavy combine, and fertilizer cart traffic there are no pronounced depressions or wide changes in soil density. This soil has obviously not been tilled in a few years and is getting structure back yet is not "hard". Yet strip till leaves an almost field-cultivated like, fertilized strip to warm and dry in the spring.  With just Trashwheels on the planter these strips are a gorgeous place to plant in the spring.  

Here are some photos from today.

Jim at Dawn

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(Dawn Strip Till C IL bean stubble 11-09-06 img 3182.JPG)

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Dawn Strip Till C IL bean stubble 11-09-06 img 3171.JPG (57KB - 427 downloads)

Dawn Strip Till C IL bean stubble 11-09-06 img 3177.JPG (62KB - 388 downloads)

Dawn Strip Till C IL bean stubble 11-09-06 img 3182.JPG (55KB - 379 downloads)

Dawn Strip Till C IL bean stubble 11-09-06 img 3188.JPG (64KB - 414 downloads)

Dawn Strip Till C IL bean stubble 11-09-06 img 3203.JPG (72KB - 379 downloads)