Subscribe to this podcast

---

Brought to you by:

On this episode of the Strip-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by Montag Mfg., a trio of experienced strip-tillers talk with a first-time strip-tiller who’s making the switch after years of conventional tillage.

During the National Strip-Tillage Conference, four farmers joined Strip-Till Farmer managing editor Michaela Paukner for dinner. Nate LeVan, Patrick Stansbery and Kendel Koehn currently strip-till, while Luke Deters and his family are conventional tillage, but Luke wants to try strip-till. 

Over dinner, the three experienced strip-tillers talked Luke through the equipment needs, obstacles and other considerations that come with switching to strip-till. Here’s part one of their conversation. 

Stay tuned for part two of the conversation, coming up later this month, in which the group discusses what to look for when buying or building a strip-till toolbar.

The Strip-Till Farmer podcast is brought to you by Montag Manufacturing.

Montag Manufacturing has rolled out two new industry-first products.  Cover Crop Plus is the first metering system dedicated to cover crop seeds, able to accurately meter even the smallest seeds like cover cress. It can be mounted to tillage implements, combines and self-propelled high clearance machines.  

The second new product is the mammoth sized model 2224 with 13 or 16 tons capacity for producers running with larger strip-till implements. For more information, visit the Montag website or your Montag dealer.

Past Podcasts

Full Transcript

Welcome to the Strip-Till Farmer Podcast, brought to you by MonTag Manufacturing. Great to have you with us for today's episode. My name is Noah Newman. I'm the technology editor here at Strip-Till Farmer. All right. So, during the 2022 National Strip-Tillage Conference, four farmers joined Strip-Till Farmer managing editor, Michaela Paukner, for dinner.

Nate LeVan, Patrick Stansbery and Kendel Koehn currently strip-till, while Luke Deters and his family are conventional tillage, but Luke wants to try strip-till. Over dinner, the three experienced strip-tillers talked Luke through the equipment needs, obstacles, and other considerations that come with switching to strip-till. Let's listen in. Here's part one of their conversation.

My name's Nate LeVan. I have been strip-tilling since 2016. So, let's see, seven years. I have the fortune of getting to see a lot of acres because I work for the seed industry too. So, I get to see a lot of guys that have tried a lot of different things, asked a lot of questions. So, that's a nice part of it.

I'm in north central Iowa, up by Stacyville, Iowa. Farm with my brothers. We do still some conventional till, still some no-till, a little bit of everything. We've tried cover crops. We've tried corn-on-corn. We use Dawn Pluribus Strip-Tiller and plenty of suspension fertilizer.

I'm Pat Stansbery from Sheldon, North Dakota. It's an hour southwest of Fargo. I farm the beaches of Lake Agassiz. Come up the hill, and that's where we're at. Sandy ground. There is some heavier ground. By and large, it's flat. Started strip-tilling in 2015. I run a Case 5310 Strip-Tiller with a Case Air Cart, as well. I farm about 1,800 acres of ... Depends on how high the water is on any given year. That's one thing we do fight is high water.

We run corn and soybeans. And, for the first time since 2011, I planted wheat this year to see how that goes. Hopefully, get a cover crop on that after we get that off. Probably going to be around Labor Day weekend the way it's looking. Maybe last week in August. You want to get more into the cover crop side of things.

Have tried different versions with flying it on and blowing it on with different ways, but ... There's so many ways to do it. So, we have 60 pain-in-the-rears. I mean, cows-calf pairs. So, that's the other reason. Graze the cows on the cover crop stubble. Somebody once told me they are the greatest nutrient recyclers ... Animals of any type, I guess, but ... So, that's ... Get into that. It works out because my wife is a vet. So, I deal with getting feed and getting rid of used feed, and she does all the fancy things. So, that works out for me.

Kendel Koehn from central Kansas, northwest of Wichita, about 40 miles. We farm corn, beans, and wheat. Most of our ... Well, half of our ground is irrigated. The rest of it's dry land. We have a a chicken wire barn. We have done some cover cropping. We've probably been at it about six years, and we have probably started strip-tilling in '96 or '97. Been pretty steady at that. We, maybe, missed-

I was 14.

... a few years in between, but that's pretty much the ... That's the deal right there. We run a Gladiator Strip-Tiller. We farm 1,800 acres. We basically just strip-till and farm corn.

I'm Luke Deters from Southeast Minnesota. Farm with my dad and my brother. And we're conventional tillage. Corn-on-corn. We're in the Bluff Country, they call it, and it rolls pretty extensively. That's why the corn-on-corn and no rotation there. Interested in strip-tilling for the fact of possibly simplifying equipment and labor needs. Possibly better fertilizer uptake and so forth. And I'm just here to ask questions and learn about it.

The hardest part for me is, when you get into all this stuff, it's like ... There's so many options. Everybody's like, "Oh, this is the greatest." Well, when you break it all down, what are you trying to do? You have to take all that into account with how your strip looks, how you're breaking the soil, your different soil types, how you're fracturing things, how your fertilizer is being placed. And it all boils down to, "Okay, I got X amount of money to spend. What can I get that'll do this for that?"

Yeah. And what's your tolerance level for adjustments? How much do you want to tinker? Because you can get really good units, but if you're not ... I mean, I don't know what your time is outside. For me, I work for seed companies. So, I have to have everything work when I need it to work. I don't have the time to tinker.

One of the guys that I learned from had Redballs, beautiful row units. A lot of maintenance-

Lots of greasers.

... a lot of greasers, a lot of maintenance. They're great row units, and they're perfect for somebody that wants to start with them. I didn't have the ability to make that work in my operation, but that was ... In his little community, the guy that I learned from ... I thought the biggest thing is why do you want to do it? Because there's 10 different reasons for 10 different guys. For me, time savings. Love the band and fertility. Don't have time to do full-width tillage. That's me. And you're going to have a different reason than him. Anybody else here. And that's the cool part that you don't know. You can ask a hundred different guys, and you're going to get really good answers.

I was telling him on the way down here. I said, "99% of guys just lay it all out there." "This is what I do. How I do this. This is the [inaudible 00:05:52]. This is my yield goal. This is ...". I mean, I'm an open book. You ask a question, I'll tell you. Because it doesn't matter if you're my neighbor or not, in my opinion. I mean, we're all here to make ourselves better in the first place. So, why ... What's the point and not just throw it out there?

If somebody says, "You're an idiot," it's like, "Well, okay. Fine. Fair enough." But ... I mean, this is my reasoning for it. I can either defend myself, or I can look at it and go, "Shit. You're right. I need to rethink what I've ...". I've had it. The first time, I had a Case 5310, which ... I mean, it was relatively cheap. It did what I needed it to. Are there things that I'd like changed on it? Yes, but it's paid for now. So-

I think that's key for a lot of people. It's always time and budget.

I had a guy that I worked with that that was his first bar. Made beautiful strips. Corn-on-corn makes it more difficult.

Oh, yeah.

Strip-tilling the soybean stubble. There's a lot of real units that are going to work just perfect for you. I think it's half of them work really well in corn. I own a Pluribus, so ... I picked it because we have a ... I would love to say west part of what I help farm in. [inaudible 00:07:04] and stuff. Black soils, no rocks, Gladiators, shank [inaudible 00:07:09]. I have rocks on the other part, and I wanted something a little more forgiving. Wanted to do more strips because we're on contours. We're on hills. So, that was my option. Not saying it's the best one. It works for us.

How deep were you guys going?

Eight inches, unless ... Sometimes, in the spring, I'll shallow it up to six, depending on how much mud I yank up the first time. It looks pretty ugly, that first 16 rows. And then, lift her up. My trouble is we don't have drain tile. We have high water table. I mean, I was strip-tilling ... I didn't do any this year, but ... Previous years, I've strip-tilled. The water table was at eight inches to a foot. So, you're going along in the ... There's waves between you and the strip-tiller. And every once in a while, you'll just watch a wing wheel or part of the cart just fall in buff two feet and then pop out like a bobber. It's weird.

So, as I'll check my fertilizer, I start digging down. It's like, "Oh. Okay. Last pass." There was water here when you dug down at eight inches. So, I'd love to do it in the fall because of the time savings. But fall, I'm starting to be a one-man band. 1,800 acres. Dad's older. It's just ... You got to find the manpower. But then, in the spring, it's almost a double-edged sword. But at the same point, if I do it in the spring ... If I can get across with the strip-tiller, I can get across with a planter.

And you want to be planting?

Yeah. So, I can ... You're at that ... How should I say it? And I ran tramlines, everything. I shouldn't say tramlines. It just works. Everything's 40 or 80 feet. So, when I'm spraying, I'm on an air cart track, planter track, so I can be held up in a lot of these spots that are ... We're getting more tile, more water, but it's just hard because the topography is part of the issue.

Basically, our water has to be pumped, and then you have to find an outlet for it. It's not like there's ditches every ...

[inaudible 00:09:07] pumps? Is that-

Yeah. Yeah. I just put one in about two years ago. And, so we basically take a slew down. That's by my dad's house, so he doesn't have to have a sump pump in his basement running 24/7/365.

You just got a really big sump pump.

Yeah. I got a 12-inch pump that'll pump up the one-inch material. It'll pump a rock through it.

Oh, [inaudible 00:09:29].

It's an irrigation pump is what it is. And basically, a jet turbine pump. I think that's what they technically call it. With a 10 horse motor on the top. And we were pumping a thousand gallons a minute for a month-and-a-half. So, 1.4 million gallons every 24 hours. And that was this spring. And there was this guy that was out there looking. He says, "Well, the slough was down because we were pretty dry last year." He's like, "Oh, why ...". Asked me why I put it in there. He says, "Yeah. Spring of 2020. Where the pump is. You would be standing in about two feet of water." From where it is at its lowest point to where it was the spring of 2020 is nine or 11 feet different. So, it's-

Wow. That's crazy. You get some dry years, too, don't you? Where it's ...

Well, last year, I think most of our fields got less than 10 inches of rain on it. There's a couple fields that were higher and drier because I hate to say it, but there's a highway that goes through Sheldon. Everybody calls it Sheldon Highway. It's the only paved road. Goes through Sheldon, obviously.

And east of that right is rain. Nothing ever puckered up. There was some stuff down by the sand hills that did, but then you go west of that highway, and it was a whole different ballgame just because of our water tank. Because there's one field I farm. It's three feet of sand. And then, once you get through that, then you hit white clay. So, all the nutrients that have leached over time are sitting right there. Oh, boy. So, if you get a dry year and those roots get down there, it's like ... Yes. Exactly.

Because I got a little late because ... I don't remember what happened last year because mine is strip-till P and K and AMS. And then, all my nitrogen is liquid. 10 gallons of planter, and then two rounds of Y-drop with sprayer after that because it just leeches. You get an inch rain, it's gone.

And I was too late, and the corn got too tall on me. So, there was 30 acres I didn't even do. I put a couple of test strips out there. Come by with a combine. Yeah, it was ridiculous. There wasn't a difference. And I'm like, "Hey, what happened here?" Because I put ... There was an extra 18 gallons of 28%, straight 28. There should have been a difference.

That's a nice savings.

Now, the thing is ... Okay. Can I save that every year? You're not going to ever know that. And if you do tissue samples, now, it's like, "Okay," but I don't know why that happened. And so, I'm trying to ... That's one of those other conundrums you get into. It's like ... I love the yield because the yield on that half section was amazing. But why did that happen? And then, that's the other thing, when you [inaudible 00:12:10] strip-till and you not being much into it, it's like ... There's so many questions that actually just show up that you ... Okay, why did that happen?

So, now, I'm trying to figure it out. This year, I did the same thing because we were late and ... So, I went out, and I purposely left a spot and put

Zero or whatever.

Yeah. But my second round, I just didn't do. And so, it's like, "Okay, two rounds of that." And then, I came back a couple weeks later and put in another one, and that one was pretty tall. The old RoGator was not impressed with what we were doing.

So, I'm trying to figure out, one, where that extra end came from because I don't think we had any mineralization last year. Just the limited amount of rain. And now, you got to figure in that. So, in my sandy soils, I'm trying to figure out if I can ... I don't want to say bank the nitrogen. I might not have put it into grain last year, but maybe I put it into the plant, which is now laying there.

Organic matter reserve. Yeah.

Am I going to get that back in mineralization in a year or so?

Wow.

Yeah. That's the tough part about ... There's always the banding conversation, right? I do think you get some banding benefits for banding nitrogen, but I do still think that, for me, the whole strip-till ... To maximize yields was not my goal. I don't know. Was it your guys' goal? I mean ... or was it to maintain yields with a lot-

Less time.

... less time. I mean, that was my goal.

Yeah.

If I'm going to say it's a 188 B&H or 200. I can't go below that, but I want to make sure that I'm doing it with a lot less time. Now, I'm not a Pullback fertilizer guy. If I'm going to add the same fertilizer, I want more bushels out of it, but that's always interesting to hear. What was your goal?

Well, we wanted to no-till because we were needing to conserve residue. We're dry. Well, 30 inches of rainfall a year. Probably 30, 31. So, we no-till corn in the bean stubble for several years. I don't know why we went away from it, but we went to strip-till, and I feel like ... Part of it was probably fertilizer replacement was our biggest problem. I started strip-tilling, probably, I think around '97. [inaudible 00:14:31].

Oh, wow.

Yeah. But I don't know if we've been steady strip-till every single year, but pretty much.

My thought was is I liked what it did. And then, with my sandy ground ... Moisture conservation was the thing. With the water table, it's like ... The fertilizer's part of it. Getting it where it needs it. In corn, you get a 100-degree day ... That top, if you just blow it on and work it in ... Yeah, all your fruit's right there. And okay, now, you get a 100-degree day. What [inaudible 00:15:11]. What 85, 86 degrees. Somewhere in that.

It doesn't grow anymore after that.

Yeah.

Shuts down.

Yeah. So, it's like, "Okay. All your fruit's sitting up here. All your roots are down here." Going, "Okay. I need moisture." It's not going in the right place. And the guy I work for ... He was full whipped and what was the year? Gosh, I don't remember what fall it was. It was dry, and we were changing chisel plow points every 300 acres.

It was just like, "This is ridiculous." And so, he rented a Soil Warrior. I ran it, and it's like, "Whoa, okay." You're blowing the fert down. Now, in the spring, you just go out and you plant? Okay. I can get behind this.

And you're done.

You're done! I mean, we did some side dressing, and there was planter stuff, but ... I mean, you're done. It's like, "Oh, okay. I got other things I can do. Okay." Because, you know-

[inaudible 00:16:03] sprayer?

Yeah. Sprayer, haying ... And then, it's like ... Okay, I got four kids and my wife's a vet. So, it's like ... She's busy. So, trying to track everybody down. And I'm not going to say it works perfectly every year because there are train wrecks. Like this year, I didn't even put the strip-tiller in the ground because all it does is drag up mud.

So, what did you do?

Well, some, I just-

[inaudible 00:16:30].

Some, the co-op couldn't get there and I just no-tilled straight into it. Just blow it on over top. And I put the P and the K, and they didn't put any nitrogen down. PK and AMS. Some micros. And blew it on. The other ones ... They got there before the planter did. Ran around with a vertical tillage and just set the edges of where I could go, where I couldn't go. And then, that was whatever.

I had to be flexible this year. I just knew what I wanted to put down because you're planting June 1st. Putting corn in the ground. It's like, "What's your yield going to be?" I mean, the summer we've had has been ... Seeing on the weather last night. Almost two degrees above average this year, so ... But in end of May, first part of June, you didn't know.

[inaudible 00:17:13]. What are your options if you ... Okay, if you plant-

[inaudible 00:17:15] up north that far.

I mean, [inaudible 00:17:28], for us, it's a concern, too.

Yeah, it looks pretty cool.

So, this year and last year, it's like, "We need to [inaudible 00:17:35]."

'20 and '21 was like, "Oh. Most things are in the ground by April." I was really freaking out [inaudible 00:17:46] in that first week. [inaudible 00:17:46].

No, I don't play with gas. I don't know. Do you? Too many ways to kill you.

I've done it for 17 years, but we did this last fall. I got a-

All of it, or do you like to split it or ...

It was just cheap. So, we did.

Do you like to put it on all with anhydrous or-

No.

You like to usually split it up?

We run 38 to 40 gallons of the planter, plant liquid of nitrogen.

How much with the planter?

38 to 40 gallons. [inaudible 00:18:24] percent, 120 units. [inaudible 00:18:24].

Okay.

See, I usually shoot for, with the Y-drop and the planter, I usually shoot for about 110, 120.

[inaudible 00:18:29].

Oh.

That's all it is.

Okay. Mine comes from AM ... or, well, just whatever [inaudible 00:18:38]. 152 and all that kind of stuff.

We're running 100% liquid at this point. I'd really like to go to dry.

With the P and K, too?

Yeah. Yeah.

So, where are you getting the K?

So, the K ... So, we were running some KTS [inaudible 00:18:54] with our strip-tiller. But we have been variable rating our 0-0-60 by having the co-op [inaudible 00:19:01] in the fall, and we just strip-till over all that.

Okay. And that's broadcast?

Yeah.

The 0-0 ... The worst part is, with all this, there's a million different ways to skin a cat when it comes to this. If nothing else, what strip-till taught me is ... You got to be flexible because what you ... At least where I'm at. What your master plan is ... Throw a stick of dynamite in it before you even start and ... Okay. Now, pick up the pieces and go because-

We always ... We strip-till in the fall. We'll start sending this corn [inaudible 00:19:34].

I don't know if I'm going to get it in the fall. That was really expensive fertilizer to put down because a couple guys that had the co-op deep band, a couple of chisel plow, deep band, a couple of quarters. They didn't get them. Well, now, you just put a whole bunch of fert out there. So, now, they're out there planting cover crops trying to get it back. But now, you got all the weeds, and it's just ... I mean, it's ...

I think the comment on flexibility. Though that ... I mean, in a good way, you tend to be like, "Well, how flexible can I be with the planter if I don't get that strip done so I can put something down to get me to Y drop?" Or do you want ... I mean, as somebody starting new, you're like, "Oh. It's the wish book." Because you're like, "Well, how do I want to do this? And what can I-

You come into it thinking you're going to put all your fertility and nitrogen on the strip-till. And in some ways, that's possible, but some ways, it isn't.

It is. But then, it puts a lot of pressure on that one pass. I mean, I came in with that, and we do suspension. So, it's 0-0-62, but it's like table salt, right? It's a potash, but it's in suspension, and we do complete mixes. Well, for me, that was ... I want the MonTag cart so I can Y-Drop with it. And it offers some flexibility for us as a liquid system, but we also have stuff on the planter. So, if it doesn't work out to do it in the strip in the spring or something like that ... I think, if I had to do it all over again, I would still build in that flexibility just because you're not always going to be able to always do it-

Do it the same way every-

To be able to say, "Well, I'm going to hire the guy to go work corn stalks. To do corn-on-corn." You can get your [inaudible 00:21:11].

It starts at the fall. What you get done then.

Yup. And then, that'll dictate your flexibility. But ... I mean, the other thing is are you going to be in the machine? Do you have somebody that you trust in a planter being in that machine? That was my thing is like, "Well, either I got to be in there or a guy that I trust in the planter," which, my brothers ... Yeah, they'd be fine.

Yup. Yup.

So, do you pull the MonTag?

I do. Not an Air Cart. It was a liquid cart.

Oh, you pull a liquid.

We do suspensions and ... My favorite part about that cart is it's a SureFire pump, but it's a diaphragm pump. You can pump anything you want, to the gallon.

Those are awesome.

And it has a magnetic flow meter. That's my favorite part because we run the strip-till with it. We run the Y-drop with it. Someday, I'd love to be able to run a sprayer with it because the suction controls are already on there, on the cart. Everything else is just hooking up hoses, so ... It's really nice.

Why liquid over dry?

Okay. I was cheap. I didn't want to buy the MonTag Air Cart, which is going to be twice as much. I wanted the flexibility. I wasn't going to sidedress with Urea. For me, if I want to broadcast, if I'm going to build ... I'm not going to build in my strip.

So, if I'm going to build up ... Let's say I want to hit a certain pod action number or a phosphorus number. I can go and do that at my local co-op. They can broadcast it when I no-till my beans, and I can alternate where I'm putting my fertilizer. So, to me, it just was a more flexible option, but it was expensive. It was twice the cost.

What was the price per unit for fertilizer?

So, we have suspension, and 0-0-62 for my supplier in suspension, same price as red. So, no difference there. We usually get it as a base of 10.34, which is, maybe, 3 cents a pound more expensive. But other than that, I don't have to pay maintenance on Air Cart, the dry cart. There takes more horsepower to run one. So, that was my rationale. If you don't have that-

No, that's interesting because we broadcast P and K and some AMS in the fall. And then, we run a Glencoe Yield Builder, which is a deep ripper, and we apply gas with that real deep, like 14 inches. And we do one shot of nitrogen in our soil. We got clay subsoil and silty loam, a little bit of clay soil on top. But it holds nitrogen really well. We can do one shot, and we don't see any losses. So, the nitrogen, for us, has worked out really well. And it's like ... How do you incorporate-

The P and the K?

But-

I have a colleague that ... He's run ... It was a Blu-Jet for years. All's he did was band anhydrous, and he broadcast his P and K. Really good luck on those heavier soils. Doesn't have to worry about it leaching or anything like that. And again, not saying it's the right way or the wrong way, but it really worked for him because he wasn't going to buy the Air Cart. So ...

And let's burn a quick time-out and share a message from our sponsor. MonTag Manufacturing has rolled out two new industry-first products. Cover Crop Plus is the first metering system dedicated to cover crop seeds able to accurately meter even the smallest seeds like CoverCress. It can be modded to tillage implements, combines, and self-propelled high clearance machines.

And the second new product is the mammoth size model, 2224, with 13 or 16 tons capacity for producers running with larger strip-till implements. For more information, visit the MonTag website or your MonTag dealer. Now, let's get back to the conversation.

Again, what you want to do with that is ...

Who's supplying your [inaudible 00:24:59]?

So, we get it through Helena. They're the main one, but the one co-op that was part of them prior to Helena taking over ... was always suspension. I mean, that's how-

Suspension is the name of the problem. [inaudible 00:25:12].

No. So, suspension fertilizer. They'll take 0-0-62. This [inaudible 00:25:16]. They'll put it in 10-34-0 as a base. ATS. And you can either do clears. They could make it a clear. But for ours, they put it in a clay deal so it stays in suspension. It looks a lot like chocolate syrup but not quite that thick. And then, that pod actual stay in suspension for, probably, a good day. I mean, if it's really heavy stuff, you can get it to salt out at the bottom, but I get that applied within 24 hours. No issue. But it's a complete-

Can you agitate it yourself?

I have a tender truck. You just pump it.

And you're running it through your strip-tiller?

Mm-hmm. So, I had it ... On the port of this, I took those two little side banders that a lot of guys run just nitrogen through in the springtime, and we just run everything through that. So, I have, basically, a dual three by three on either side of the row is where it gets placed. So, if this is the center where you hopefully plant, it gets placed here. It's probably like your Warrior. It's not all down at a certain depth. It's like through the full three or four or six strip. Yeah. It doesn't get incorporated. It's just side banded, but not saying it's the right way. It was just ... [inaudible 00:26:30].

It seems like, in our neck of the woods, dry is ... Yeah, there's some liquid products, the add-ons, the popup, that kind of stuff. But I guess haven't really asked because I was set up with the Air Cart with the strip tiller.

That's awesome.

Because it was ... And now, I bought an Air Drill, and I got to put a strip kit on the front of a 3380 Case Cart. So, everything's in the row. Three different tanks. Variable rate. And it's like, "Okay. Now, I can use that on the Air Drill to put in cover crops. And I can put it on the strip-tiller. Keep going."

That's interesting because I don't know if I can put a seed on our contour in the strip and make it all work, but if I could ... I like the banding idea because you might be able to reduce fertilizer and keep the yield. The precision planting ... I've seen they have the conceal. Is that similar to where you're applying it with your Pluribus?

Oh, it could be. I mean, I don't know. I've never used a conceal. I've only seen the demos. Yeah. They're in the middle of the row or the middle of the gauge wheel, right?

Yeah.

So, [inaudible 00:27:35].

Yeah. They have a dual wheel gauge wheel or something?

Yeah.

How deep do you think you're going with your liquid?

So, the new Pluribus. You can probably, legit, get down to six. Now, that's to the hubs, as far as it'll go. We only do that in the fall, so we get a little height to it. So, I found, with the Pluribus, it's very much about speed is how fine the berm gets. So, if you want it to look like his nice chunky fall strip, I got to go seven, and I got to sink that sucker in.

Now, if I want it to be like a rotor-tilled strip in the spring, three-and-a-half to four as fast as you want to go. I mean, it'll make a really nice strip, but it's very sensitive to speed and ... It's very sensitive. Here's the colter. Here's the little injection deal. And so, those colters are like this, but they're also like this. So, there's a little [inaudible 00:28:26] pocket behind there, but ... You probably get some from two to wherever the colter gets to the bottom.

Okay.

And do you mind saying how many gallons per acre you put onto that?

Depends.

Depends.

My pump doesn't like to go below 25 just because it doesn't like to. You got to set the calibration back a little bit so it doesn't try to go too high. I had it surged the first year I had it, but we've gone as high as 80.

Did you ever try that ... I called it the Wonder Pump, but it was with LiquiShift, I think they have it, where it will automatically shift over. It's a SureFire setup, but it'll add a certain speed and gallons of pressure. It goes at, say 25 gallons is max. But then, once you hit a certain speed ... So, it's meant for variable rating. And so, if you need 50 gallons down, it shifts to a whole new set of lines and orifices. Yeah. I put one on a planter once and it was ... liked it, but it's a lot of stuff to put on.

Yeah.

I believe it.

So, the only bad part about the suspension is that you can't run orifices. So, I basically just run a small diameter tube. [inaudible 00:29:33] A little bit of back pressure. If I would've done this, I think, with a centrifugal pump, at the end, that sucker would want to just drain out and then I have to. But since this is only positive, it doesn't sit there and spin. When it shuts off, it's just ... It's done. So, it has a little recirculation there, but ... The pump was expensive, but it wasn't expensive as an Air Cart. So, it was still one of those-

That's what's interesting because I don't know if I could make conversion right away, but if you could band with the corn planter-

Oh, yeah.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

That's interesting to try as some trials ...

40 gallons. I mean-

Yeah, we built our own brackets. They go behind the row unit three inches over on each side of the row. We've got them stainless steel string [inaudible 00:30:15]. And we're running Yetter closing wheels.

Oh, twisters?

Yeah, the twisters. So, it's convincing ourself that we're [inaudible 00:30:24].

You're in a drag chain or just ...

No. So, that dirt is polarized, and I'm just thinking I'm injecting a little bit [inaudible 00:30:31].

If it's loose enough, it'll-

Yeah.

Okay. Yeah.

There we go.

[inaudible 00:30:34] 2,000-gallon anhydrous tanks mounted on our Challenger. So, every time I filled it up this spring, it doubled the value of the tractor. [inaudible 00:30:40] a lot of product.

So, my big question. I mean, in thinking about switching to dry ... Man, the handling of that product is a pain, isn't it? I mean, what are you doing? I mean, you drag a conveyor around, or do you have a truck set up that you can auger this stuff right into your car and strip on? I mean, I'm-

See, I'm cheap.

I'm trying to think how to do it.

My wife tells me I squeak when I walk. I followed at an auction. An old Chevy tandem truck with a Willmar 16-ton hydraulic. The guy just ran it off. Just an auger off the back. And his truck ran like a champ. No brakes, but it runs like a champ.

The brakes are [inaudible 00:31:21].

Minor detail.

So ... But I just don't want another thing to try and keep running. So, I got a truck with a wet kit now. [inaudible 00:31:33] with a wet kit. So, now, I'm trying to find a trailer. I actually bought a neighbor's. He had an old, short, little military trailer, but the thing is so short. I tried to back it up to park it after I bought it. It was near impossible. I'm like, "This might've been a bad idea."

But I got the Air Cart with the conveyor on it for ... So, I'm going to run a gravity wagon box to put on that to load beans because I think I can just drive up to that and load it on the conveyor. So, I'm still looking for a 53-foot drop deck or something. So, then, I can put the fertilizer tender on the back. Put my seed tender on the front because we already have a ... Our spray trailer doubles as our popup and 28% in our side dressing. So, just ... I got enough trucks running around. So, if I have vehicles that I need to have run anyways for harvest, I figure, just try and use them. Use them [inaudible 00:32:22].

Keep them in shape. You running a single compartment or ...

I run a three. The tender is a dual compartment, but my Air Cart's a three compartment one. So, I'm going to ... Just to cut out a pass because doing the two Y-drop passes ... It's getting to be a lot with spraying and [inaudible 00:32:40]. So, I want to eliminate the first one, basically. So, I'm going to put down a little bit of Urea with the strip variable rate, but it'll be a 70-30 blend of Urea and ESN. So, I can get the ... more late season. And then, my Y-drop pass will just be the late season, the last ... See how the crop's doing. Put down a base rate for ... Plan for 160, 70 bushel corn or something. And then, side dress above and beyond what we think we have coming. So, that's-

But you got a lot of flexibility built in there. I mean, if you get all the rain ever wants and ... Oh, gosh. It's going to be 200, 220, it's like ... Well then, you can do it late.

Well, that's when Dan Muff, the guy that actually came out with the Y-drop first ... I went, and I'd seen him talk. He was at [inaudible 00:33:26]. I was like, "Holy shit. That makes sense." And it doesn't take long to put on. A half-hour.

[inaudible 00:33:35] set up with the Y-dropper just because I like ... On those light soils, it needs to be right there.

And when you get a windy day or you get a break between beans ... It just made sense what he said. Putting it right there, and it's quick and easy. Load up. Yeah, 18 gallons and an 800-gallon tank. You don't get very far, but you can get a couple hundred acres done a day and not trying real hard.

I mean, I've got as many as 500 in a day, but the water ... filled up the water truck with 4,000 gallons of 28 and just ... Dad would come get it and move it along. Fill it when I needed. And it works. But then, there was one year ... I just finished side dressing, and then some stuff got hailed out and it's like, "Damn it. There went X amount of acres." So, that's why I was trying to figure out, what with the screw-up last year, not getting my side dressing on ...

Did you do it?

Yeah. Now, I'm looking back at all my yield maps going, "Okay." I was trying to put a test strip in somewhere. Make it pretty stinking obvious, so I can see it. But just trying to ... I don't know. When everything goes to hell in a handbasket, it's like, "Well, what's Plan B now?"

Sorry? Any of you doing grid sample, or how are you coming up with your variable rate?

We used to variable rate anhydrous and P and K. We should have gone back to it, but we were only in control of the variable anhydrous. And it was just not much of a price difference to keep going on the flat rates. We haven't sowed a sampled for a couple of years and probably should. I'll go back and see, but ...

I want to get more grid sample done. Just whole field sample. But I've tried to break it up because we have some salty saline stuff that I'm just trying to break up. And then, you look off the yield monitor. And I'm going to do a little bit more because I had an old Case Cart with a 3400 Case Concord Cart. So, everything was going down the same hole. It would variable rate, but I don't remember how ... It was pretty limited on its capabilities. Now, with this 3380, I hope I can do more. But there's times when I just turn it up in the field, manually. Say I'm putting down 100 or 240 pounds. I'll just run up to 300 and go with that for a round, and then mark it and see what it does.

So, do you grid sample?

So, I've gone the full circle where if I didn't have any sort of idea of what it was, I gridded. And then, we're starting to move more towards zones. So, as I define zones as a yield monitor ... I'm like, "Okay." So, for me, I have to put it in a liquid. So, if I'll run a standard rate for the whole field is 35 gallons. Some may be as low as 25. Some may be as high as 52. So, that's how we've moved. That being said, I only do it on certain fields. If I don't have more than 30 bushel variances, it's like, "What am I really doing here?" For the sake of-

Does the cost of sampling outweigh the ... You know?

Exactly. And that's why we moved to zones where it's like ... This part of the field is always my best part. And instead of having 20 spots in that, I've got it down to 10. Half the cost, and they're the same. They're tiled. They all have the same stuff.

Now, in the areas ... I've done a field where it's acre grids, just to try to define some of the variability. I'm probably only going to do that once, maybe twice. But once you find that, you get those zones. [inaudible 00:37:04] with them. So, unless that's something big ... Like you said, you're getting tile. Once the tile gets in there in five years, hopefully, you're like, "Okay, well ...". Yeah. It changes. But that's where we're at. I've gone full circle. I see the utility in grids, but at the same time, grids for the sake of grids ... If you have a flat black square, it's all the same-

Yeah, for you where you're at.

So. We have a little bit of both. So, we have some that are pretty variable, and then we have some that are pretty ...

Are you using variable rates?

Yeah. Yeah. We grid every four years, partly because I work for a company that does it. I used to ... I mean we pretty much farm, but I do sales only. It's Heartland Soil Services. So, anyway, the part that I've seen is that ... We have, maybe, five different soil types. Our ground varies in a quarter, maybe even in 80 you might have that.

Oh, yeah. Ours are way more variable than that.

And our pH varies so much. We go from four, three, to sevens. And so, the lining is a big deal for us. I don't know what your pHs are, but that's a big deal. It's a money maker. And then, I can see corn yields ... Our lowest fertility is our best producing ground. And that's because we're always fertilizing for 200 or whatever bushel corn. And we might be pulling 280 off in those spots that are low.

So, that's ... We're not necessarily using less fertilizer, but we're putting it-

Where you need it.

Yeah. That's a big deal. If you take 10 boxes and split it over four years, that's 250 an acre. I mean, why wouldn't you spend 250 an acre to make a $450 fertilizer? Or whatever you want to throw that number. Or 200 vegetables, 200 whatever. Depending on what the price is.

That's the fun part.

We never know.

Call tomorrow. It may be different.

Yeah.

In the last three or four years, we've been spreading manure on a bunch of this ground and so we're strip-tilling naked. Without anything. Just getting strips out to help break up the compaction.

Yup. To make the seedbed. The seedbed's the most important part. Yup.

And under our pivots, I feel like we need it. We'd have enough water on, but I feel like we need to help lift that soil up. We do about eight inches. That's about as deep as we can fall.

What did you see different with your seed bed in your area with the strip-till versus your no-till? Why'd you go away from that?

Well, part of the deal is our combines aren't the best at spreading the residue. We had red machines and ... That would've been some of it. You can see the-

[inaudible 00:39:53].

Yeah, in the residue ... probably would be the biggest thing. And I felt like the grain ... If it's at all wet, the grain cart compaction and everything ... Hauling all that off [inaudible 00:40:04] that we were-

Pushing the rating.

Yeah. It was just hard. We don't work around unless we do dirt work on it and ... Otherwise, our ground is just strip-tilled and that's it. And ... We don't strip-till. We no-till beans and the corn. We don't strip-till that. And we did some this year because we needed some fertility, but typically, we don't.

Okay.

So, that's the question I wanted to ask is strip-till beans or just no-till beans? Because I've done both, and I can't say that I really see a big difference. I mean, lower fertility farms? Yeah, I see a bigger difference. Well, good fertility farms? I don't know if I see much of a difference. You no-till them, and they yield very similar, so ...

This is probably the first year I strip-tilled in front of beans.

I did it to get my fert down. My fertility down. That was-

When you no-tilled your beans, were you still in a row?

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Yup.

Yeah. So, we have a little bit of ... Literally go for conventional till to no-till planting green. So, I've done the cover crop thing.

That's fun.

And the first time you do it, the first couple of years you're like, "Ugh!" After you do it, you're like ... You want to do it again. And that's something that I think the cover crops are changing things a little bit. I mean, not that the fertility part still doesn't matter. We still grid test. We still apply, but the beams have slowly climbed.

The corn in that area where we do corn, strip-till. Beans, no-till. We had some of the best yields we've ever had on that farm. And it's not one of the better farms. I mean, I think, for me, it's easier to take some of these farms that are more variable, more difficult and bring them up than it is to, say, I got to push 300 or whatever your top yields are on my best acres. If I can maintain to maybe improve a little bit on the good farms, but I can bring my bottom ones up 25, 30 bushels-

You're making money. Yeah.

... then it makes sense to me. So ...

So, do you cover crop in front of corn at all, then?

I have. So, the first time I did it ... More of an experiment to say that I could do it. I don't know if I need to do it in corn-on-corn situation. I'm not quite convinced yet. I do it, but it's a lot of residue to mess up.

I'm interested in it to plant interseed into beans because that's where I feel like we're going to have the erosion is after we harvest the beans rather than ... So, to plant corn into a cover crop is what I would be interested in trying, for that very reason to be able to raise beans and not worry about water erosion.

Yeah, beans are honey badgers. They don't care for the most part. I mean, you can till [inaudible 00:42:45] them. You can no-till. They seem to really respond. I think they respond to cover crops better than corn does. [inaudible 00:42:53] about the nitrogen. And honestly, rye. Cover crops, training wheels. I mean, rye. It's truly hard to mess up rye.

That's what you were saying. It's a gateway cover crop.

We know it's truly, but ... I want some of the stuff in the springtime. Seeing that green up in the springtime, you're like, "Oh," and then when it breaks down-

[inaudible 00:43:08]. They get established in the fall.

Yup. And so, where we get our cover crops ... There's still a lot of state funding dollars. So, they'll go into the programs, and they'll still put oats in. That's part of the stuff that they'll get guys into. But those oat acres get applied first. So, I've gone to putting in some oats with my rye, so I get that nice ... I get an early application with the airplanes. I get some really nice growth out of the oats. It's not a whole lot different as far as the risk structure, but it was beautiful the way it established last year.

And so, I think I want to do more of that two species, even though they're really not that much different. But they worked really well last year.

You were flying it on?

Mm-hmm. And you really hope for rain within three days. Because then it's like a putting green versus a barren desert. You get rain right now-

And the amount of residue you have makes a heck of a difference, too.

High yield corn residue is not your friend.

[inaudible 00:44:03] something to go into.

So, for me, no. The lower yielding stuff ... It was beautiful. But the high yield stuff snuffed it out a little bit.

So, when are you putting it on?

August. Sometime in August. Late August, early September.

I tried that. I haven't had very good luck, and we had the [inaudible 00:44:22] come in and do it. Our water conservation district was giving us discounts around it. And so, the first year was beautiful. The second year ... This last year, we didn't get anything out of it. Our rye came up and disappeared. And they said it was crickets. It was the first thing I had ever heard, but ... Crickets. It was ... I thought it was maybe armyworm [inaudible 00:44:50].

You had those, too, last fall?

Yeah. But anyway, yeah. So, I was disappointed that we didn't get anything last year, but I've probably done it about six years.

My biggest disappointment has been where going and flying cover crops into beans, where you get it almost too early where they're not dropping leaves. It was really inconsistent. Where we drilled into bean stubble, even though we're like you. We're right up against that. Are you going to a frost?

Yup. See, I tried that in, I think it was, '18 or '19 at a RoGator when the beans were dropping leaves. Blew it on. It all germinated, but we never got warm. It was wet, and it just [inaudible 00:45:28] sat there. But it was a dryer chunk of ground. I basically wanted it for cattle feed because it was all beans on that. Where our pasture is surrounded, it was all beans. Didn't have any corn stubble. It's like ... Looking at the year. They're going to run out of food over here before I'm done combining the corn over there. Shoot. So, blow it on.

It all germinated. It looked good, but it never did anything. But then, the previous year, guy that I rented the thing from, did that. Phenomenal. It was amazing. But then, again, he didn't put ... He put rye down both times, where I didn't do that. I put oats, turnip, and radishes because I didn't want it to come up and dry it out the next spring. So, it's kind of, "Darn."

But then, of course, the next year, we had a bunch of PP ground in the spring, and I'm out there trying to wander through that with the bat wing, trying to knock down grass, weeds, whatever when it finally dried up. But here, I'm finding turnips and radishes just huge. Like, "Okay. All right." So, I left a bunch of it and then we turned the cows out there and planted cover crop around it. Turned the cows out there. They turned that spot that I didn't run over where those turnips and radishes were. They didn't drown it out. They turned it black trying to eat them damn things out of the ground.

Oh!

[inaudible 00:46:49].

They would paw the ground.

But that field, this year, planting into it was our experiment in, I don't know, the sprayer. So, when it get terminated. So, this stuff, we planted it. Didn't terminate it. Normally in the past, we terminated it before we planted the day before. [inaudible 00:47:02]. It's usually about this tall. This stuff we let get a little bit bigger. That came up and went ahead before I could really get ahead of it. The beans are fine, but for a couple weeks there you're like, "Oh." It was 14 days after we planted it, and it got ... Yes. Not quite that tall, but ... Yes.

And that'll do it for today's podcast episode. A full transcript is available at StripTillFarmer.com/podcast. Stay tuned for part two of this conversation, coming up later this month, in which the group discusses what to look for when buying or building a strip-till toolbar.

Thanks to Nate, Pat, Kendel, and Luke for today's conversation. And thanks to our sponsor, MonTag Manufacturing, for helping to make this strip-till podcast series possible. From all of us here at Strip-Till Farmer, thanks for listening. I'm Noah Newman. See you next time.