What you should know about picking the right tillage tools
Monday, December 6, 2010
Ontario producers have a wide range of tillage tools available to them today. Some tips to help you sort out the options you need
by PAT LYNCH
I received an education at this year's Canada's Outdoor Farm Show. I was asked to moderate the tillage demonstration. What follows is a summary of comments the equipment people made to me.
When you work soil, you want to incorporate residue shallowly and evenly, so allowing the residue to break down. Tillage must leave the soil level. If you incorporate residue properly and leave the soil level, this will reduce erosion and conserve moisture. Today's tillage tools are designed to make a seedbed in fewer passes. If you do all of this, you maintain soil structure and reduce costs.
Specifically, you want a tillage tool that will uniformly incorporate crop residue in the top soil. You want this residue shallowly worked in, but with enough trash left to prevent water and wind erosion. This is something a mould board plow cannot do. It incorporates trash, but leaves it in a layer.
When you use a mould board plow, you need multiple secondary passes to mix the residue and get a seed bed. The mould board plow leaves the soil open to wind and water erosion.
In the early 1980s, Ontario growers went to the Soil Saver, which allowed primary tillage without leaving strikeouts and furrows. The Soil Savers failed because they left the soil uneven and allowed differential soil moisture strips in the spring.
The newer tillage tools allow primary tillage without strikeouts and furrows. They also leave the soil level. This allows even soil moisture across the field in the spring. It also permits fertilizer spreading and spraying in the spring without working.
Ontario growers have used disks for primary or secondary tillage. The older disks had two undesirable traits. They left ridges and they compacted the soil in the spring. The newer disks do not leave these ridges. They tend to have less concave blades, resulting in less compaction. They also feature depth control. This means you can leave more or less residue, depending on your soil and residue conditions.
All of the manufacturers have tillage tools that can handle the higher amounts of trash that comes from today's higher yields. They are aware of the extra residue left behind the combine as we go to wider heads and have produced tillage tools that will work down the residue left after the newer combine heads that chop stocks.
Tillage is an art and tillage tools are an artist's tools. You would not give a paint brush to an artist and ask him to paint a picture that everyone would like. There are too many variables. The same is true with tillage. If you give the same tillage tool to two different producers, they will end up with different results. The results you get depend on soil type, crop residue, past and current crops, and soil moisture.
Different producers want different things from their tillage. This is based on their experience working with their soils. To this end, most of the tools on demonstration can be equipped with different options – from tooth width to down pressure to type of harrows. Makers of these pieces of equipment claim they can be used for primary tillage in the fall or secondary tillage in the spring. Picking a tillage tool is not as simple as it used to be when the major difference was width and perhaps foot type and width.
After seeing this equipment, I feel that Ontario producers have a wide range of tillage options to choose from. There are more differences in the various options for individual pieces of equipment than there are across brands. It is a matter of getting a knowledgeable person to help sort out the options you need. I am convinced Ontario has these people to help with this decision. BF
Consulting agronomist Pat Lynch, CCA (ON), formerly worked with the Ontario agriculture ministry and with Cargill.