Brought to you by:
On this episode of the Strip-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment, Randy Bump takes us inside his strip-till operation in Albany, Wis.
Bump explains the keys to success for making 100% of his strips in the spring and how to manage his number one concern — seed to residue contact.
He also shares some of his game-changing equipment adjustments over the years, including a switch from shank units to disc units.
|
|
The Strip-Till Farmer podcast is brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment.
Yetter Farm Equipment has been providing farmers with solutions since 1930. Today, Yetter is your answer for finding the tools and equipment you need to face today’s production agriculture demands. The Yetter lineup includes a wide range of planter attachments for different planting conditions, several equipment options for fertilizer placement, and products that meet harvest-time challenges. Yetter delivers a return on investment and equipment that meets your needs and maximizes inputs. Visit them at yetterco.com.
Full Transcript
Noah Newman:
Hello and welcome to the first Strip-Till Farmer Podcast of 2024. And thanks to our sponsor, Yetter Farm Equipment for making this podcast series possible. I'm Noah Newman, your host technology editor. So on this episode of the podcast, Randy Bump takes us inside his strip-till operation in Albany, Wisconsin, which is in the southern portion of the state. Bump explains the keys to success for making 100% of his strips in the spring and how to manage his number one concern, seed to residue contact. Plus he shares some of the key equipment adjustments he's made over the years, including a switch from shank units to disc units. Here's Randy.
Randy Bump:
This next year will be my ninth year strip-tilling, and the first three years we ran a shank machine, was strictly rotating corn, just doing strips and the bean ground planting it with corn. And then in 2019, I wanted to go back to a bunch of more corn on corn, so that's when we went to the Dawn Pluribus unit in '19 and had been running that doing quite a bit of continuous corn on corn. So, I started probably back, I'm going to say in the early 2000's, went out to Iowa, looked at a very good farmer's operation out there, very large farmer operation out there, and it was probably end of June, so we were looking at V7, V8 corn on corn, and I was like, what in the heck are you doing? And he's like, "Strip-till."
And I wanted to start doing strip-till so bad back then, but in early 2000's it wasn't a lot of people doing that and stuff like that. And at that time I worked 100% full-time off the farm and I was kind of hiring a lot of my farm work being done on it. But then I just finally in 2014 I said, "We're going to do something." And one of the main reasons I wanted to get into it is that in my soil types, I have all types, Southern Wisconsin soils, sandy, clay, and good soil as well. But I was fertilizing in the spring of the year because in the sand you got a lot of mobility with the nutrients. And so, a lot of my fertilizer was going on in the spring of the year anyway, so this was where I'm like, "Well, let's go strip-tilling in the spring of the year.
So, being an agronomist, I've seen everything that works and doesn't work, and mostly you see what doesn't work a lot of times. So, I would say that the main reason why I got into it is what I like about plant health, when it gets up and gets out of the ground, nutrients right there. I do save some money on fertilizer. I mean, there's no doubt I'm not, if it calls for 300 pounds of Potash, I'm not putting 300 pound spinner spread out there. I might be running 200-225 somewhere in there on it. Then the other thing is I'm kind of a one man show, so I didn't want a whole bunch of hired work. I'd done paid guys for a number of years to conventional tillage. I was paying a lot of guys and I wanted to get back to doing a lot myself.
So less equipment and can get a lot more done with strip-till I think, than I did in the past. My yields, I mean, I was raising good corn before, but I knew what was going to happen and my yields are significantly better. I have just as good a yield corn on corn as I do on rotated, and I actually have some better yields on corn on corn out here and continuous corn for seven, eight years, and I'm not looking back on it either.
Noah Newman:
What are your average yields, would you say?
Randy Bump:
So I'm over the 200, so I'm doing farm averages of 210 and stuff on it, so I'm happy with that. Here's the thing that I would say is that the top end yield, and it might be hybrids, but the top end yield, I don't see where it stops in my strip-till operation, where in the past it was almost like in conventionals there was a top end that it stopped at; but I don't know where the top end is yet in strip-till because like I say, every year I'm amazed at how good yields are on things.
Noah Newman:
Yeah. So you're saying you don't really see the ceiling, you wouldn't be surprised if every year if you set a new yield high?
Randy Bump:
Yes. Yeah, yeah. Yep. So, this year was a little dry, so I farmed a couple counties. I had one county, I made APH, another county, I didn't make APH, but till this year, I mean, I've been steadily going up in yields. I mean, I have 250 to 275 bushel yields, but to do full farms of 210 to 225, that's where I'm at in today's world on things.
Noah Newman:
So you have 800 acres, correct?
Randy Bump:
Yep.
Noah Newman:
And then, 300 acres of continuous corn. Now, do you strip-till all of your corn and soybeans, or are you just strip-tilling corn? Or how does that work?
Randy Bump:
Right now, no, I'm strictly just strip-tilling corn. I had done three years of beans into it, and over those three years of period, I'm not sure I seen the advantage to it. So, there's a cost of running the piece of equipment. So any of those fields that are going into beans, so I'm running two years worth of fertilizer in that strip. So if it's going to be corn this year and then beans in 2025, I'm running two years worth of fertilizer into that strip. No, I've done that in the past. I've done the strip-till beans and I just saw about a bushel and a half advantage on it.
Noah Newman:
So then are your soybeans no-till or?
Randy Bump:
Yep. Yep.
Noah Newman:
Okay.
Randy Bump:
Soybeans are no-till in the corn stubble, and I'm getting less and less. One of the things that this is just, I don't like soybeans, I'd rather raise corn anyway, so this year I started with 40 acres of strip cropping, which is 12 rows of corn, 12 rows of beans across the 40, and I'm going to 220 some acres this next year of the strip cropping on it. And so, I'll be strip tilling into the bean stubble and then planting corn in there and then just rotating back and forth doing that. So I'm probably, that was just kind of a ballpark sometime. So there's 350-ish acres that have been corn on corn at least since 2017.
Noah Newman:
We've seen a lot of fall strip-till versus spring strip-till, what's the better option. So if you could just kind of take me through your whole strip-till process in the spring and why the spring is the best option for you?
Randy Bump:
Okay. So with the clay contents that I have on some hills and stuff like that, I just feel that the fall leaves a little bit more lumps in it and stuff. I mean, we tried fall, I just wasn't as happy with the strip in the spring. So with me running... So there's a couple of reasons why I do the spring. One is, I want that residue to break down a little bit from the fall out there. So I'm actually, when I'm combining, I'm laying my field out for next year's strip-till on it. I mean, I know when I'm combining, I'm like, okay, I've got to have 12 rows going this way, and then when I strip-till, I jump every other 12 rows. So I'm laying that field out. But spring to me is because I've got sandy soils and I don't want to lose those nutrients over the winter. So there's one reason why.
Two, I think going over some of my clay hills, I get a little bit lumpy. It might be a little bit wetter in the fall, so I wait maybe in the spring. And then, the third and maybe most important is I'm running about a hundred units of nitrogen in that strip in the spring. I wouldn't want to be putting urea and AMS out there in the fall of the year and expecting it to be there in the spring. So I want, depending on the field, a hundred pounds of nitrogen is the most I'm doing out there on it, but I'm doing anywhere from 60 to a hundred pounds of nitrogen in the strip in the spring. And I think in my soil types, I mean, I've been all over and looked at it, in my soil types, spring seems to work better for me.
Noah Newman:
Gotcha. And then, talking more about the fertilizer, so do you apply that with the strip-till bar?
Randy Bump:
Yes. Yep, yep. Yeah, so in the strip-till I'm applying nitrogen Potash and the DAP out there. I'm also, I've been doing a lot of micronutrients in there, so just about every acre gets boron on it. I'm getting a sulfur from the AMS in there. I've been playing around this last year and the year before, different kind of zincs in the dry fertilizer that's going out there. So, being able to have that fertilizer in the script with the corns being readily available to it is pretty important to me. I actually just signed the papers this morning. I just bought a new side dresser this morning.
Noah Newman:
Oh, wow.
Randy Bump:
So I've been running a coulter machine, dribbling it off the back, but I bought a new one that we're going to run a coulter machine with a knife behind it that I'm going to be knifing liquid UAN in the ground. So, I come back in there at the V5 to V7 timeframe, and I'm going in with another eight to a hundred units of N at that time. So, to get that nitrogen broke up when plants need it more readily is what I'm trying to do there by spreading that out.
I used to, in the past, I used to do 60/60/60, what we call it. So I was doing 60 units up front with a planter or whatever. Then 60 units, weed and feed and 60 units side dressing at the end. But I basically have said, "Okay, let's make sure I know I got a bunch of nitrogen early on for the plant and then something a little bit later on." So yeah, so that's the side dressing I'm doing. Believe me, Noah, I've tried in a number of years, I've worked with a lot of different manufacturers. I'm like, "I would like you guys to build a strip-till machine that I can just automatically go back in there and then side dress."
Noah Newman:
Yeah, that would be great.
Randy Bump:
I haven't found one that works. I think there's some people out there that are playing around with that, but that's something that I've asked a couple different people, "What's your thoughts on that?" So Joe Bassett, who owns Dawn, I know Joe. I talk to Joe a couple times a year and he's heard my comments on it. That would be my ideal thing to do is to be able to go back in and even split apply some P and K later in the year. So when I'm side dressing, every pass I go across, I've got sulfur, and so I'm using ammonia thio sulfate in there on the UAN when I'm side dressing, ATS is going on it. So it's not just UAN, I'm also playing around with some micros in the side dressing as well on it.
Always seeing what works and what doesn't work is kind of my goal. I'm running, the lowest rate I'm running is 350 pounds the acre, and I'm all the way up to 570 pounds of an acre on it. So, it's all done by soil types or soil tests. We're doing soil tests every three years on stuff, and so we just redid soil tests this spring, so it moves a little bit. But yeah, so 350 pounds of acres a minimum, and 570 is the most I'll be putting on this year.
Noah Newman:
And that's total. So that's NPKS and micronutrients?
Randy Bump:
Yep, yep. So I'll give you an example here. I mean, I don't know if you put this in the article, but for instance, the lowest rate has 25 pounds of DAP, 25 pounds of Potash, 150 of urea and AMS, but then the highest one that's 570 here, I'm running like 160 pounds of DAP, 110 pounds of Potash on those fields. And some of those fields are a little sandy, so it requires a little bit more on them. But yeah, so my heavier dirt doesn't require quite as much B and K as some of my sandier soils do. My corn on soybeans, I don't use any nitrogen. I don't use 40 units of N. Anything that's soybeans, I consider that, it's got to have nitrogen. To me, being an agronomist, I always tell people, "Hey, there's three things I know corn needs: water, sunlight, and nitrogen." There's a lot more. There's 25 other things, but those three things are pretty key. Water, sunlight, and nitrogen to make corn.
Noah Newman:
What kind of planter do you have?
Randy Bump:
I run a John Deere planter. So on the planter, yes, I've done some changes on that. So, my strip till has a row cleaners on it, so I'm also running road cleaners on my planter. I usually try to get strip-tilling 5th to 10th of April. So I want to get in there as soon as it's dry enough that I can go. And so if those strips lay for a couple of weeks for me, I don't care. It doesn't matter to me if they lay, but then when I come in with a planter, I'm also running row cleaners on that, and then I'm really very lightly going on top of the strip. I don't want to disturb that strip much, but there's a little root ball or something might be on there. I want that off.
Then I'm following up, coming back in, and I'm using a yetter closing wheels on both sides on that, and I've done that for a couple years. I think that stitching works really well in closing the seed furl behind it, and I'm also dragging the other chain on the back end because I really want that berm... After I go across it with a planter, sometimes you can get a little bit of indentation in there. Those chains seem to flatten that out so I don't want that to be indented and have water sit in that pass. The berms are there after I strip till it, but sometimes that berm is very soft when you go across with the planter... That's one of the maybe disadvantages of spring is that that berm is soft. You go across the planter, you can leave a little bit indentation. So I don't run anything on my planter except for one thing, planter boxes. I don't have anything else because I want the least amount of weight going across that strip as possible, so I'm just running boxes on top of the roll.
Noah Newman:
I see. Yeah, that's a good way to minimize compaction and all that.
Randy Bump:
Yep, yep.
Noah Newman:
And let's burn a quick time out to share a message from Yetter Farm Equipment. Yetter Farm Equipment has been providing farmers with residue management, fertilizer placement, and seed-bed preparation solutions since 1930. Today, Yetter is your answer for success in the face of ever-changing production agriculture challenges. Yetter offers a full lineup of planter attachments designed to perform in varying planning conditions, multiple options for precision fertilizer placement, strip-till units and stalk rollers for your combine. Yetter products, maximize your inputs, save you time, and deliver return on your investment. Visit them at yetterco.com. That's Y-E-T-T-E-R-C-O dot com. Now back to the podcast.
Do you use the same planter for soybeans too? Is it just the same?
Randy Bump:
I do, yeah, I do. I'm running 30-inch beans on it, so it's probably been five years and it's not nothing new, but I plant my beans first and I really don't get excited to go plant corn till May 1st. I can have a whole bunch of neighbors running and I kind of wait. I mean, I might start April 29th, 30th, but I'm not going out there planting early just from the standpoint of I'm a seed agronomist, I see everything that's bad all the time, and what I've learned is that it'll come up, but it's just laying there for an extra 10 days or two weeks sometimes. So, if I got my planter all gone through, it's planted beans, I'm sitting usually waiting to plant corn out there.
Noah Newman:
How many rows is your plant?
Randy Bump:
12 rows.
Noah Newman:
12 rows.
Randy Bump:
So I'm running... Yep. So I match everything up 12. And you've heard this, I mean, you know, it's one of the things that's really been awesome is the AutoPath from John Deere. I started out before the first couple of years, we didn't run RTK. We were running just straight auto steer and made the jump to RTK. So I'm going out there and my strip-till machine is laying the path for the planter to go along with. So after, I mean, I'm running a globe on the strip-till machine, so that's laying my path with plants. So everything 12 rows following 12 rows following 12 rows. So everything I do is 12 rows on it.
Noah Newman:
So you've got the AutoPath thing is connected to your planter. Right? So then what's connected to the Pluribus to make sure that it lines up?
Randy Bump:
So there's a globe... When I go out there with a strip-till, okay, it's the weirdest thing the first time. So RTK, the tractor drives everything. Correct? Okay. So now I go out, there's a globe on the tractor, there's a globe on the strip-till machine on the Dawn Pluribus bar, it's a Moore bar with Dawn units on it pulling a monte cart. So that path where those strips are made is being recorded by the Dawn strip-till unit. That's recording the path. Then that globe is on the planter, and when I go out there, that planter is actually driving the tractor. The planter stays on it, and the planter tells the tractor where to go. The planter will not leave those strips. It's the weirdest feeling. Normally the tractor's pulling the planter in the pass, but once you get the AutoPath, the planter's actually telling the tractor where to go. That planter stays right on that strip.
Noah Newman:
And so, you just sit in the cabin and let it do its thing and that's it?
Randy Bump:
Yep, yep, yep, yep.
Noah Newman:
Wow.
Randy Bump:
Just let it do its thing.
Noah Newman:
That is unbelievable technology.
Randy Bump:
Yep. RTK is a given. I mean, everybody you've probably talked to tells you that. You got to have RTK. I agree with that, 100%. AutoPath, I think it's been out three years now from John Deere, and of course, it's like anything else, it has a couple hiccups, first years, but I mean that thing is right on. And then, you come back and side dress and I mean, you just sit in a tractor and there and the side dresser doesn't run over any corn, just goes right down the rows. Now I was raised driving a tractor on a farm, so my dad's 82 years old, and he just shakes his head at me when he watches me in the tractor and combine, just sitting there looking around.
Noah Newman:
Oh, so you use the AutoPath for side dressing, for everything then?
Randy Bump:
Yep, I'm using the John Deer AutoPath for everything.
Noah Newman:
Wow, that's pretty-
Randy Bump:
Combining everything. Yep, combining and everything on her. I'm excited because my number one problem concern is always residue, but the short corn, I'm going to get about 40 acres of that this year to try. It's a new technology that Bayer came out with, so it'll have the same number of nodes as a regular corn plant, they're just compacted and it's shorter on it. I got a young guy, kind of a neighbor, he is going into strip-tilling, so he's been talking to me. Well, this summer. He goes, "I got to come look at your stuff," he goes, "Because I drive by yours and I see how great it looks and stuff."
So, normally with somebody like that, and I've done this with other guys, what I do is first thing I do is I take them to my best dirt that does 275 bushels, and then we walk out there and I go, "Here's your number one concern." And it's full of residue because I mean, it's been corn on corn for years and there's a lot of residue out there, and I always say, "Here's your number one concern if you're going to do strip-tilling corn on corn is controlling your residue." So I said, "That's kind of key on some of that." I mean, you've heard it, you've talked to strip-tillers.
Noah Newman:
Now as you mentioned, the residue management, it all starts in the fall when you're harvesting, right?
Randy Bump:
Right, right.
Noah Newman:
So you put on the devastators?
Randy Bump:
[inaudible 00:23:37] devastators.
Noah Newman:
Yeah.
Randy Bump:
Yep. So I've run for three years now. I changed corn heads a couple years ago, and we went to more aggressive corn rolls on the head, and then I started out with the other devastators, and I think I got it down now that... When I say, so if you know where they are, they're underneath the corn head and they're rolling and they're like knives. They go over top of the roll. So, as you're driving one way, you're rolling down 12 rows of corn. Well, you don't want to strip-till going the opposite way in that. So that's why I say when I'm out there combining, I'm going, "Okay, these 12 rows are going to go north, and when I'm stripping, I don't turn right around and come back down the next 12. I go up, skip 12, come back down."
So, I'm going up 12 rows laying corn down with the utters, I'm skipping over 24 rolls and then I'm going back down. So I'm laying the field out. I learned that after the first year is that, oh yeah, you don't want these willy-nilly laying out there, it's got to be laid out the right way. That's just running the more aggressive stalk rolls and then running these younger devastators have helped. I've talked to strip-tillers that run the chopping corn heads. They're happy with them, and there's some of them that are like, it actually makes too much of a mat out there. So I'm not sure the answer on the chopping corn heads.
Noah Newman:
Gotcha.
Randy Bump:
I would say it's this way. There's people that love it, there's people that are like, "Yeah, that didn't work for me," so that's why I haven't went to a chopping corn head yet.
Noah Newman:
I see, I see. Any other things that you recommend people can do to manage that residue if they're doing corn on corn? Or is it-
Randy Bump:
Well, I mean, one of the things I haven't done, but I'd like to do is there's some biologicals out there that you want to spray on in the fall of the year on it. The one thing I would say is that if you're going to do that heavy, if you're going to do corn on corn, you kind of want to watch that you're getting a medium hybrid, medium stature, medium height hybrid. You don't want a real tall thing because the taller they are, the more residue they're going to leave out there. So, that's one of the things I always look at is what size of that plant is, how tall the plant stature is on it.
One of the other things that you can control with the residue is, especially if you've got the heavy residue is, I really tell the guys you want to look at, make sure you got strong emerging hybrid on it because you're going to clean that row as much as possible, but you're still going to get some residue to be in that strip, and wherever seed kernel touches a residue, there's a little bit of a chance that it might not emerge exactly. So, I look for a strong emergence hybrids and they got good disease tolerance just because I am going to get some seed corn on residue mixed in. The number one thing I try to stop is that. That's my whole thing is try to make sure I don't have any residue in that row, but you're going to get some. So, understanding that that means, hey, make sure you got a hybrid that emerges good, and that it has good disease on it.
Noah Newman:
Yeah. So hybrid selection, that's a big deal if you're going to be able to pull this off successfully.
Randy Bump:
Yes. Yep. I think it is.
Noah Newman:
Yeah. Talking more about the strip-till, so how deep do you build your strips and how deep are you placing fertilizer and all that?
Randy Bump:
So, I'm running about three and a half to five inches depending on fields. I can change it pretty fast, but I would say my average is about four inches deep. And so, running the disc holders, I'm running those about four inches deep, so that means that the fertilizer's being blown into that mixing action. So, I've got fertilizer through that whole berm from four inches down to almost right to the top. You can find the fertilizer on it still.
Noah Newman:
Gotcha. And then you plant two-
Randy Bump:
Right on it.
Noah Newman:
Right on it, about two to three inches deep or somewhere?
Randy Bump:
Yeah. So I'm running at least two inches plus deep. Yep. So that's another one of the reasons why... Now I planted behind the heavy fertilizer application a couple days, but that's kind of why I want two weeks of that fertilizer sitting out there. I mean, with the amount of load that I'm putting out there and fertilizer, sometimes I don't want to plant exactly right on, two days later. Now there's guys out there, they'll strip and then they'll within 24 to 48 hours they're planting on it.
And there's nothing wrong with that, but they might not be running as hot of a fertilizer mix as I'm on it. So, for me to get it lay out there, it mells it out, mells the soil a little. No, I'll tell you, one of the best things that happens on spring strip-tilling is, spring strip-till and get a nice half inch to three-quarter inch rain on it. That makes that so much nicer to plant into because it puts just a little bit of a crush on the top and you don't sink the planter into that berm as much.
I've planted, we've had, was it two springs ago? I mean, we strip-tilled, never had any rain, and that was probably, yeah, it was in '22. Yeah, it was just, man, it was just like planting in a garden. It was that fluffy into that. So, I like to get a nice half inch to three-quarter inch rain on top of that strip after I've stripped it and then plant right on top of that. That's what I think works the best.
Noah Newman:
Yeah, that would be perfect. It was dry this year, but if I remember, wasn't the spring pretty wet though, wasn't it?
Randy Bump:
Yeah, so we had some rains, I mean, once it dried out though... So yeah, we had April, I'd say 20th on, we had some rains off and on, but once it dried out 1st of May, I mean it was like within eight, 10 days everybody was done planting. It was just nonstop goal. So yeah, we had good planning this spring.
Noah Newman:
Now, do you use a lot of test plots to test hybrids?
Randy Bump:
I do. So I have a hybrid test plot, a couple of them every year on my farm. So I'm doing corn on corn just so I can look at what I think works best for corn on corn, and I'm doing corn on soybean test blocks to look at it. That's hybrid. I do a bunch of fertilizer stuff, so I haul my own fertilizer. I go pick it up and I can blend different stuff in it as I order and stuff like that. So, I'm doing a lot of different fertilizer tests out there and stuff. I've done this last year we did some impregnating the fertilizers, some different biological stuff like that just to see and you see advantages and you don't see advantages. I'm going to try it on my farm first before I do a whole bunch of acres to it. So, one of the things that worked really well this year is a product, it's called micro coat, so it's coated on my Potash and DAP. So that looked really good. So I'm doing a bunch more of that this next year.
Noah Newman:
When you switch from the shank unit to the Dawn disc units. So what's the big difference between the two in terms of why do the discs work better for using the shanks?
Randy Bump:
So the shanks, I thought, put more lumps. There was more lumpy soil behind it, but that could be because of the clay content and my soil on it. The shank also was running a little bit deeper, and of course, we got rocks here, so we were pulling rocks up, but the main reason I switched was we were running the shank unit. We were just strip tilling in the beans and planting corn. We were 50/50 at that time. And then, so I've always liked corn, so I can give you a quick back. In 2004 is when my dad and uncle retired, and I was working off the farm as a seed agronomist, and so, I took over then and for 10 years, or I'm sorry, eight years, I did a lot of corn on corn. And then in '12, the drought hit 2012, then I went back to 50/50.
So then I did 50/50 until 2018. And this isn't a political statement, but in '18 is when President Trump did the embargo or whatever with China. So I'm like, "Oh shoot, I don't want to plant soybeans. They ain't going to buy any from us," so I went back to a bunch of corn on corn and the shank machine just did not work on corn on corn. We had tried it, it was plugged up all the time. It was a John Deere 2510s Shank machine. It was just plugging all the time. So, I knew I had to go to some sort of a disc unit and that's when I went to the Dawns. I knew a couple of guys that were running the Dawns.
Noah Newman:
Oh, okay. I see. Interesting.
Randy Bump:
And the other thing is, the shank unit takes more horsepower. I mean, you're going to have to have more horsepower to pull the shake unit till. The Dawn's a lot less horsepower, and a shank unit is going to probably run you about 35 to 40 horse per row. Where the Dawn's, I think it's rated like 15 to 18, so it's almost half.
Noah Newman:
Oh wow.
Randy Bump:
The horsepower. Yeah, takes almost half the horsepower.
Noah Newman:
And that'll do it for this week's edition of the Strip-Till Farmer Podcast. Thank you to Yetter Farm Equipment for sponsoring the podcast. And thank you to Randy Bump for taking some time out of his busy day to join us for that thought-provoking conversation. Until next time, for all things strip-till, head to striptillfarmer.com. I'm Noah Newman. See you next time.
Post a comment
Report Abusive Comment