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Driftless SW Wisconsin | It's hard to answer this question without sounding like a row cleaner sales pitch.
However, in my work with strip till and row cleaners, I have found that a row cleaner is absolutley essential on the planter even into a row cleaned spring or fall made strip. Just run very very lightly in the offset position. We make several types, unit mounted screw adjust and floating screw adjust.
I would NOT recommend using a floating type row cleaner, even with depth bands, when planting into strips. There is just too much difference between being on and occasionally off the strip. I like a rigid but easily adjustable row cleaner run in the offset (non intersecting or retractred with a coulter) position. This way we control the distance between the bottom of the row cleaner and the bottom of the vee opener. Sometimes even half of a turn on our acme screw adjusting knob makes a big difference. We saw this in our strip till demo into very wet pea ground Thursday.
Guest has a point about using a 13 wave coulter in SOME soils to break up the possible crust, especially on fall-made strips in the spring however in my opinion you STILL need the row cleaner.
If you get off of the strip occasionally, especially on side slopes or curved rows, the coulter lessens the difference in stand between on and off of the strip. It also acts a bit like a keel on a sailboat to keep the planter tracking where you want it.
One solution I recommend is our Dawn 1572 combo. here is a picture. Trashwheels are easily adjusted and back physically as close to the planter gage wheels as possible. The coulter is usually mounted in the center hole which puts the bottom of a new blade 1/8" above the bottom of new vee openers on most planters.
Most of our Dawn striptill customers however just run our screw adjust Trashwheels on their planter without a coulter.
The 1572 coulter combo is especially good on planters running into fall strips made with a mole knife or other shank type machine run in the fall in heavier wet soils that leaves the strip a bit chunky.
Or start with the Trashwheels only, you can always add our 1500 coulter over the top. You will be amazed at the difference in stand uniformity. You will still probably want more than the std DP springs. The row units will not be bouncing. I would not demolish the mound. The coulter will help break it up and leave the soil in the strip where it came from. You do not want to be planting into or over an open slot. The coulter will help that. Here is the 1572 combo photo. The photo shows a 3/8" wide 16" Ripple blade mostly used in corn on corn. The same unit is available with a 3/4" wide 16" diameter 13 wave in place of the Ripple. On the JD NT series we use the same unit with our new smaller 12.75 dia swept back forged wheel. Best of luck.
Jim at Dawn
Edited by Jim 7/22/2006 00:43
 (Dawn1572Ripple.jpg)
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 Dawn1572Ripple.jpg (50KB - 328 downloads)
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Question for striptiller and Jim at dawn
