As you wrap up harvest this year, the work isn’t quite over. With the end of one season, you beckon in a new one with the way you treat the soil and prepare it for spring planting just a few short months away.
So, how do you make sure you prep fields the right way?
It’s critical you protect the soil while also creating a suitable environment for seeds next year — tillage is one method to tackle these responsibilities. This includes managing residue, breaking up compaction and incorporating soil amendments such as manure, fertilizer and even cover crop seed.
Establish tillage goals
Do you have ruts? Compaction? Fertility issues? Cold soils? Weed management? Whatever the potential issue in your soil, identify what you want to accomplish and match your tillage methods to the goal.
“We can tailor the tool to what a customer’s goals are,” says Aaron Faessler, McFarlane Manufacturing principle engineer. “For example, if they’re looking to bury residue, especially heavier residue like corn, we would recommend a more ‘conventional’ product that buries it 6” to 10”.”
On the other hand, farmers looking to size residue or work the soil at shallower depths, say 3”, could use a vertical tillage-type tool. If you need a hybrid option, there are some tools on the market that both bury and size residue without completely disturbing the soil profile, as done with deep horizontal tillage tools.
There are multiple hybrid tillage options on the market. Kinze offers the Mach Till machine for hybrid horizontal tillage. In addition, Great Plains recently launched a hybrid tool of their own called Terra-Max.
“Hybrid tillage tools often exhibit varying gang angles (which may range from 0° on up to 18°), shallow-concavity blades with aggressive edges, narrow blade spacing (8” or less), and a combination of different rear finishers that are uniquely distinguished between either the vertical or conventional tillage tool,” says Blake Bergkamp, Great Plains agronomist.
Know your tool’s strength
You don’t use a hammer to attach a screw to a wall. In the same way, you need to make sure your tool performs in a way that meets your expectations in each field.
“For example, if you’re going from a high carbon crop to another high carbon crop like in corn-on-corn, you need to get that residue broken down,” says Justin Render, Kinze tillage product specialist. “For that and weed management you probably want to look at a hybrid horizontal tillage.”
Here are several tillage options to consider for your operation.
- Conventional tillage will move more of the soil, bury residue deeper, which includes weeds, and generally provides a ‘looser’ feel to the soil when it’s done. It’s not without risk of erosion, including wind and water, so know your fields and their risk. If there’s a big hill on your field, it might be worthwhile to try a different management technique on that particular section.
- Vertical tillage can provide benefits not seen in conventional tillage. Farm Journal Test Plots research showed a 12.7 bu. per acre advantage in corn for the practice. It provides shallower soil disturbance and doesn’t move as much soil because disks are in the vertical position, instead of horizonal found in many conventional tools. It can be helpful with compaction but doesn’t get to deeper layers like other tools can.
- Hybrid tools companies are starting to offer tools that combine desirable components of conventional and vertical tillage. Great Plains explains it as a blend of vertical and conventional that allows for aggressive field passes at higher speeds than conventional. It’s also provides more field leveling, residue incorporation and weed suppression than vertical tillage alone.
- Conservation tillage includes practices such as no-till or strip-till. These provide the least soil disturbance. Strip till provides a small area that gets warm faster because it has been worked, while no-till soils can often stay cold longer in the spring. On the other hand, wind and water erosion is reduced and water infiltration can be increased with these practices in addition to reducing compaction.
Work with your trusted adviser to make sure you’re using the tool that’s right for your operation. In addition, double check attachments and settings in every field to make sure to maximize performance by field characteristics and soil types.
When it comes to evaluating fall versus spring tillage, know your operation. Consider what your time commitments are in either season, if you’re hoping to kill early spring flushes of weeds, if you’re trying to break up large residue and so on. These considerations will help you hit timing as best as you can — if Mother Nature cooperates.
