Chad,

It's Sunday, and I am not going to bite on that one. I appreciate you and your Dad trying our units. Time will tell what "works" and what doesn't and where and how it is used. I wish you well in whatever tillage system you choose. There is now and always will be more than one type of strip till system on the market.

As I recall you are not doing strip till at all but gone to a full width tillage. That is fine if tillage better fits your farming system. I am not going to ever say that strip till in general or our particular flavor (no shank) of strip till is for everyone. Folks are raising some very good crops using a wide variety of tillage systems. Look at Francis Childs, he uses a mini moldboard plow to raise record crops but not everyone is going that direction.

To be honest, the customer pictured above in the photos from yesterday is not new to strip till. He has had some custom work done with another type of machine then purchased a different type of machine which is now for sale. He is now moving into our system based on what he has seen. Does that mean the other systems he's tried "don't work"? Not at all. I think a better way of putting it is that the other machine just doesn't fit into his "system" as well as ours does.

I am in contact with the person that purchased your strip till equipment from you and it does seem to fit his farming "system" very well. We have customers maybe 20 miles from you who have used our equipment for several years very successfully - our type of strip till does fit their farming "system" quite well.

Then others, such as yourself, as I recall, have found they prefer a "system" with full width tillage. Brian also has found that full width tillage fits better with his overall farming "system". His strip tilled beans looked very good when I last saw them, however from an overall farming "system" standpoint he has chosen, last I knew, full width tillage over the two types of strip till machines, ours and a shank based unit of the brand you mentioned, which he has owned and operated.

I don't think we will ever have a time when everyone farms exactly the same way. That's one of the things that makes this such an interesting business. And in general I think that as I get older I realize more and more that the world is a lot more complex than just divided into things that "work" and things that don't. Have a good day.

Jim at Dawn