Well I have been no min-tilling for six or seven years now. I do run a field cultivator over the bean stubble but that is the only tillage on the farm. If the yields are reduced I cant see it now. The first two or three years I did have a reduced yield but not now. This year being a dry year I saw much better corn yields than my neighbors, like 50 bushels per acre better than one neighbor across the fence who deep rips. We both fertilize the same and grow corn with the latest genetics. The last two years were really wet and though I do not have solid numbers my crops were no worse than other farms going by what my custom harvester told me.
I think Coonie will agree with me we do have to pay more attention to the planter and what kind of a job it does placing the seed and closing the seed furrow. We can be fairly sloppy planting into nice loose black soil. We can not do a sloppy job planting no till without paying a yield penalty. I happen to be very fussy about the job my planter does and I am willing to spend money on the planter to improve its no till performance. You have to get your butt out of the tractor seat and walk back to the planter to check for needed adjustments more often. This is where most guys who try no till fail. They dont want to spend a little extra money on the planter to make it capable of good seed placement, they dont want to take the time to make fine adjustments, they just want to sit in the seat and look forward for hours on end without stopping. They have to cover those acres.
I still like the looks of a nicely plowed field, I think every farmer does but when I pencil out the expense of owning a tractor big enough to deep till or plow my land the price of chisel points, broken shanks, broken arbor bolts, broken disk blades and replacing $50 bearings in the disk gangs in the fall my head spins. Then I figure cultivator sweeps, field cultivator tires, replacing bent shanks, replacing evener teeth and the bill gets higher. Now I need to figure in fuel, it takes a lot of fuel to move all this dirt. Hard pulls on the transmission puts more strain on the power train. How much does it cost to replace a power shift in a big tractor? $20,000? $30,000? I wont get into engine overhaul costs on big tractors. Rear tires digging in the ground trying to pull a big load cost what? $2,000, $3000 up to $6000 each? I have one old 4650 Deere that pulls my 12 row planter and 60 foot sprayer over 700 acres. I might put 100 hours on the tractor doing planting and spraying. I rent a tractor to pull my field cultivator for 20 hours per year. I still am uneasy about not working in the manure and liquid nitrogen otherwise the corn would be no till also.
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