"Soil Warrior" Creates Seed Zones And Applies Fertilizer In One Pass

"Soil Warrior" Creates Seed Zones And Applies Fertilizer In One Pass FERTILIZER APPLICATION Fertilizer Application (58f) 30-2-17 There's a growing array of equipment on the market for vertical tillage or strip tillage but we've never seen anything like the "Soil Warrior" built by Mark Bauer of Faribault, Minn. Bauer's rig combines a massive 6 by 8-in. main frame cart that carries 8 tons of dry fertilizer with a twin frame toolbar that pulls 16 row units on 30-in. centers. The whole rig lifts and folds together and rides on four giant 18.4 by 26-in. straddle dual wheels. The Soil Warrior has a dual purpose: first it creates 7 to 9-in. deep zones in the fall while applying and incorporating dry fertilizer. Second, it can make a shallow pass in the spring across the same zones, incorporating a dry nitrogen fertilizer and creating a gently tilled seedbed for planting. "I tried different types of conservation tillage, vertical tillage and strip tillage on my farm with a variety of equipment, and none of it seemed to be the right answer," says Bauer. "The equipment either wasn't built strong enough, wouldn't incorporate dry fertilizer, wasn't capable of handling corn stalks, or worked the ground in slots that turned into washouts." After numerous drawings and plywood models, Bauer built a single row unit and mounted it on an old toolbar in 2003. "We tested that first row unit in the worst conditions we could find," Bauer says, "which wasn't too difficult because it was the middle of winter. We ran it through partially frozen corn stalks and sod field roads, down gravel township roads and across soybean stubble. It did what we wanted it to do, so we built 16 rows and mounted them on a toolbar from a strip-till machine." Bauer liked the seedbed results and his crop started fast, but he was frustrated with weak components and problems with the toolbar. He answered those frustrations and challenges by building his own machine from the ground up. He and his wife along with his brother and a few close friends spent hundreds of hours designing, building and perfecting the multi-purpose machine. He worked about 3,000 acres in the fall of 2004, and covered many of those same acres in the spring and fall of 2005. At this juncture Bauer feels the machine does exactly what he wants it to. Better yet, it folds down to 13 1/2 ft. tall and less than 17 ft. wide, so it easily travels down country roads and fits into his machine shed or shop. "When I started this process in 2003 people thought I had lost my mind," says Bauer. "Neighbors thought I had quit farming because my cornstalks were standing, my bean ground was untouched and my machine shed was nearly empty. My shop was surrounded with scrap metal and the lights were on way past midnight every night." Building the Soil Warrior was a family affair, with Mark and his wife joined by Mark's brother Jay and acquaintances who know their way around a farm shop. Two machine shops handled the large fabricating work after Jay designed it on a CAD system. One of Mark's older hog buildings became the assembly shop. Persistence paid off for Bauer and his crew, because his Soil Warrior now meets all of the objectives he laid out in the beginning: • It tills zones that are 6 to 9 in. deep in any type of soil, without creating smooth sidewalls and pulling up huge clumps of soil. Tilling is accomplished by a massive 34-in. coulter on each row unit. The case hardened 3/8-in. thick coulter has 10 integral ductile iron cutting bits that are 1 1/4 in. thick and 5 in. long. The bits create a spoon-like cutting action that slices through residue and digs deep into any type soil, creating a U-shaped zone of aerated soil. Two 26-in. coulters with a unique "saw blade design" are mounted behind the primary coulter. They float free without down pressure to gather soil and form it into a neat berm. This row unit is so unique that Bauer has applied for a patent on the design. • It has uniform down pressure and infinite depth control on the row units. Each row unit has a 16-in. air bag simila

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