M,

I agree with you completely. In this area I would not touch bean stubble in the fall, with any tool. If it isn't residue blowing it will be soil as we all saw last January. In fact on Saturday morning in the 30 mph wind blowing from the south there was ALREADY soil blowing across I 90 as folks were feverishly working bean ground!

One of the features of our Dawn strip till unit is that you can run it in fall or spring. Most customers who have used other types of strip till are used to the rush in the fall to try to get all of their strips made.  Generally most folks find it is NOT a good idea to plant directly over the strips made in the spring with shank types machines. Our unit can be used one round ahead of the planter if desired.

The customer pictured has been using a shank type machine. He will find his own way of running our units. That strip as pictured is just a gorgeous place to plant in the spring. It will gray off very quickly.

On or near Buffalo Ridge I would first of all make sure I leave corn stalks standing as tall as possible and intact, attached to the ground. Run the corn head as high as possible with the oldest cast iron rolls that will get the ear off of the plant. Run our Pluribus strip till machine in the fall between the just harvested corn rows to just open up a black strip to warm in the spring. Then in this area I would run our Pluribus again in the spring at any opportunity to freshen the strip and at that point put on some or all of your fertilizer. We have folks using this system for corn on corn. The standing corn stalks do also protect the small corn or bean seedlings emerging in the spring

In bean stubble in this area I would preferably run the Pluribus in the spring. However if you want to run it in the fall we can raise the row cleaners to leave a bit of residue in the strip. The customer in the photos was not putting down any fertilizer. He just wanted a black strip. This field has had a lot of manure.

I think on bean ground this customer will knife in manure in the fall then run our Pluribus over the manure knife slots in the spring putting down a full shot of N as 28% down one side of the strip with the tank setup shown and making a fit place to plant. They are all liquid.

In corn stalks on the ridge I think you may agree that you really need a black strip. Here is a photo of a run in some stalks Saturday. Note the far RH row has what we feel is our fall heavy corn setup. It will be put on the other rows for corn.

The ridge is a different area. The wind generators were sure generating kW the past few days.

These customers will evolve the best way to use strip till in their farming system with  their mix of crops, manure, time, fertility needs etc. We try to provide some options.

Jim at Dawn

(Dawn Strip till Corn stalks SC MN 10-7-06 img2854 RHopt red2.JPG)

Dawn Strip till Corn stalks SC MN 10-7-06 img2854 RHopt red2.JPG (47KB - 191 downloads)