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"Reverse Gang" Disk Amazea Min-Till Farmer
"It's unbelievable how well it works," says Dave Mussman, Ruskin, Neb., who modified a 30-ft. Ford disk so that it cuts through cornstalks and lightly tills the soil, leaving a protective layer of residue on top.
"I was looking for a new form of tillage and considered using a Phillips harrow or trying some kind
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"Reverse Gang" Disk Amazea Min-Till Farmer TILLAGE EUIPMENT Disks (18) 29-4-20 "It's unbelievable how well it works," says Dave Mussman, Ruskin, Neb., who modified a 30-ft. Ford disk so that it cuts through cornstalks and lightly tills the soil, leaving a protective layer of residue on top.
"I was looking for a new form of tillage and considered using a Phillips harrow or trying some kind of shredder, but that equipment was all very expensive. One day I realized I could try to create something new at almost no risk," Mussman explains.
The disk is equipped with straight coulters on front on 7-in. centers, and angled disk gangs on back. He reversed the coulters on back of the machine, putting the right side coulters on the left side of the machine and the left side coulters on the right side.
"This machine allows me to farm with less equipment. All I use now are a disk, a planter, and a sprayer. I don't even use a chisel plow any more," says Mussman, who uses the disk both on corn and soybean ground.
He bought the disk at a sale for $250. He cut loose all the angled gangs in front and replaced them with the 22-in. straight coulters. He kept the original coulters on back of the disk, just reversing them.
"I came up with the idea because I farm min-till and wanted a better way to work the soil surface, without having to dig deep," says Mussman. "It's unbelievable how well it cuts and then fluffs up the residue and soil surface, especially in bean stubble. The residue won't blow away because it's lightly mixed with the soil. There's nothing else like it out there. I run the disk only about a half inch deep, which is perfect because I put on dry fertilizer and just want to scratch the soil surface. I use Dawn residue wheels on my planter which easily push residue off to the side."
Mussman says the machine is light enough that he can travel fast at about 9 mph and cover up to 32 acres per hour. "The disk pulls so easy I can use my Deere 4020 to pull it when necessary, although at a slower speed."
Total cost to rebuild the machine was only about $2,500.
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Dave Mussman, Rt. 1, Box 86, Ruskin, Neb. 68974 (ph 402 226-3221).
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