Strip-Till Equipment Used To Interseed Cover Crops

Strip-Till Equipment Used To Interseed Cover Crops CROPS Miscellaneous Carson Klosterman converted strip-till equipment to interseed cover crops and it worked great His company Strip Till For You designs strip-till no-till and fertilizer application equipment for customers Interseeding was an experiment he did for himself but he got a good reaction with it at a 2017 field day “I demonstrated it at a University of Minnesota field day at Morris Minn ” says Klosterman “The farmers who were there really liked it ” Klosterman interseeded in the fall of 2016 with a 30-ft Moore-Built toolbar equipped with 24 Dawn Duo Seeders with Dawn disc openers For a seed supply he mounted an older Hiniker seed hopper and airflow distribution to each Dawn unit Klosterman is impressed with the Dawn components “The Dawn Duo Seeders and openers are pretty versatile with their parallel linkage and dial-in air-powered down pressure ” says Klosterman “Guys are using them for seeding soybeans and putting down dry or liquid fertilizer ” In the future they may be using them for interseeding too Klosterman took his into sugar beet fields at the end of August and early September By the time the beet tops were clipped the rye was visible though it really hadn’t grown much Even after the heavy truck traffic in the beet field the stand was visible “Later in November we strip-tilled the beet rows leaving strips of rye ” says Klosterman “This spring we planted corn into the rye after it had been terminated The corn came up nice ” Klosterman hoped the rye would hold the soil from blowing over winter and also help the corn He tried broadcasting rye in standing sugar beets in the same field where he interseeded “We got little or no emergence with the broadcast rye ” he says “You could see right to the line where we put it in the ground with the interseeder ” Before the field day he replaced one Dawn unit with a Yetter 2984 strip freshener converted for seeding He also replaced the rolling basket on the Yetter unit with rubber tire packing wheels Both units worked fine when he pulled into the field Klosterman was looking forward to doing more interseeding this fall He outfitted a 30-ft toolbar with Dawn disc openers and a new Valmar cover crop seeder However before he could use it a Michigan strip tiller heard about it and bought the $36 000 machine “He bought it to interseed sugar beets like I had but I expect he’ll end up expanding its use to corn and soybeans over time ” says Klosterman “You can use the same unit to make strips in the fall freshen them in the spring and then move them over 15 in to plant cover crops ” Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Strip Till for You 7980 158th Ave S E Wyndmere N Dak 58081 ph 701 899-1439; carsonk@rrt net; www striptillforyou com

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