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On this episode of the Strip-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by DigiFarm, John Hanson switched to strip-till a few years ago to save money on fuel and labor costs and increase the moisture-holding capacity of the soils on his 1,600-acre farm in north central Iowa. He’s found a way to be even more efficient by planting soybeans with his Environmental Tillage Systems (ETS) SoilWarrior.
Hanson explains how he sets up his rig to plant soybeans and why he makes strips in the spring instead of the fall. Hanson also dives into his nutrient management strategies for corn, discusses a promising new product that boosted his yields by 5 bushels per acre and more!
Use the promo code DIGIFARM to receive 15% off your 2024 National Strip-Tillage Conference registration. Head to StripTillConference.com to download the program and register.
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The Strip-Till Farmer podcast is brought to you by DigiFarm.
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DigiFarm VBN provides industry leading technologies, support, and resources to the dealer as well as end user. DigiFarm VBN uses its own base stations to create a virtual base giving the end user greater accuracy and reliability at industry leading pricing.
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Full Transcript
Noah Newman:
Welcome to another edition of the Strip-Till Farmer podcast. I'm technology editor Noah Newman. Thanks to DigiFarm, our sponsor, you can use the promo code DigiFarm, that's D-I-G-I FARM at striptillconference.com to receive 15% off your National Strip-Tillage Conference registration. And the conference takes place August 8th and 9th in Madison, Wisconsin this summer. Hey, we'd love to have you there. So yeah, striptillconference.com to check out the program and take advantage of that promo code for 15% off.
Okay, today we've got a two part conversation with north central Iowa strip-tiller John Hanson. First, managing editor Michaela Paukner catches up with Hanson at the 2024 Commodity Classic in Houston, Texas. And she discovers something very unique that he's doing with his strip-till rig. He's planting soybeans and making strips at the same time. So that's something we just had to follow up on. Later in the podcast I call John back for more details on his system, but let's start with part one. In Houston, here's Michaela and John.
John Hanson:
I'm John Hanson. North Central Iowa is where I farm corn and beans. We do 100% strip-till in the spring as of right now. My cousin Brent, he works for the company SoilWarrior, so he had us try it. We ended up liking it. We kept doing it for five, seven years, and then we bought our own machine. Last year we bought our own machine and it was just save on time, fuel. Like me and Dad, just me and Dad, we farmed 15, 1600 acres. So for us, for two guys, that's a lot to do.
We can make all the strips in March, let them sit, and we can go back and plant April, May, whenever it's fit to plant our corn, and there's only two of us. So big labor saver. Fuel saver is huge. You don't rip. I haven't ripped or fuel cultivated for four years now, so that's the labor, parts, trying to find people to do that, fuel. Extra passes. So that's our biggest thing. Plus you're just only doing 33% of the field in terms of it, so you're not ripping the whole field open. Sometimes they work the field twice in the spring, then it opens it up because it dried out. So the more time you mess with it, the more moisture you lose. So this way it kind of stays moisture and all that good stuff.
Michaela Paukner:
Are you strip-tilling all of your crops?
John Hanson:
Oh, yeah. It's 100% strip-till in the spring, so 100% we do all strip-till. Yep.
Michaela Paukner:
Okay.
John Hanson:
We strip them both. I plant... We make the strips for the corn. I plant beans actually with the SoilWarrior in the spring, so that's one route we go. It's good for us.
Michaela Paukner:
How does that work in terms of planting and strip-tilling at the same time?
John Hanson:
It's like you're putting fertilizer down. You want to do so many pounds per acre you want to put down for fertilizer. You do the same way with beans. You see us blow the beans on right back there. You kind of angle the tube back a little bit and let the dirt cover it up, and then you're done. It saves a lot of time on fuel. You don't have to rip, you don't have to fuel cultivate or nothing. We just one pass and we're out of the field and it grows.
Michaela Paukner:
What kind of planting population are you guys doing that?
John Hanson:
We're at 150 still. We bumped it up this year a little bit because sometimes it depends on how wet or dry the spring is. A wet spring they'll come up, but dry, they'll try and grow and then they'll kind of peter out. But a lot of times if it's a wet spring, it works out perfect. So this year we did it this year and it worked pretty well for us this year. So good yields. Us and the neighbors, we're all in the same yield range of each other, so no yield loss for what we did, and we only did one pass.
Michaela Paukner:
And then in terms of looking towards planting, are there any issues you're prepared for or thinking about with planting in 2024?
John Hanson:
Yeah, we like to get in earliest we can. With us, we had a mild winter or two, we had some snow. It's all melted now, but hopefully they're talking there's maybe seventies next week, maybe we'll go on and strip next week and we'll do our dry and our urea. Start to do urea, about 30 pounds urea. Then we do a sulfur product, AMS or something. We'll throw it all on there same time. Then we'll strip all our acres, then we'll go back and plant our corn whenever after April 11th we can plant. So whenever around that date as fit, we'll go in there and just plant it all, and then move to beans.
Michaela Paukner:
And then when you guys are doing the fall strip-till, and then aside from when you're planting the beans, John, how much time do you leave between making the strips and planting? And does it matter?
John Hanson:
We do the strips in the spring, you mean?
Michaela Paukner:
Yeah.
John Hanson:
Typically you always say three or four hours, but it depends on how dry the situations are. And our planter, we took the trash cleaners off, the row cleaners off on our planter because then the dry dirt's on top and you flick off all that dry dirt and it makes it a little muddier. But if we take ours off in it, we can probably plant an hour or two after that sun hitting those black strips. So to us, setting up SoilWarrior in the spring too, a lot of times ETS will come out too and help us set it up, or just make sure we're set, ready to go.
Noah Newman:
And let's burn a quick time out. Here's a message from our sponsor, DigiFarm. DigiFarm VBN is an RTK corrections provider utilizing our privately owned network across much of the US. We work with all brands of GPS receivers and have numerous ways in how we can deliver our RTK corrections. DigiFarm has our in-house design modem Elevate and our popular Bluetooth device called the Beacon used in conjunction with our DigiFarm VBN app.
We also can use other OEM installed modem devices along with displays that have in-trip capabilities. DigiFarm VBN provides industry leading technologies, support, and resources to the dealer as well as the farmer. DigiFarm VBN uses its own base stations to create a virtual base, giving the end user greater accuracy and reliability at industry leading prices.
And again, get 15% off your National Strip-Tillage Conference Registration with the promo code DigiFarm. That's promo code DigiFarm for 15% off. Head to striptillconference.com to register for the conference, which takes place August 8th and 9th in Madison, Wisconsin.
Now to part two of our conversation with John. Let's pick up the phone and give him a call as he gets ready to hit the field for planting season.
How many rows is your strip-till rig?
John Hanson:
Ours is 12.
Noah Newman:
12 row. Okay. And then, how many acres of soybeans do you plant with it? Because I know that was, the pretty unique thing is you're using that to plant soybeans, right?
John Hanson:
We do between six and 700 acres a year rotated. So going back on cornstalk ground.
Noah Newman:
Six to 700 acres, you said?
John Hanson:
Yep.
Noah Newman:
In the normal year, do you plant corn or soybeans first?
John Hanson:
We do corn first.
Noah Newman:
Well, do you strip-till your corn too, or just soybean?
John Hanson:
Nope, we do it all. So we'll strip-till our strips and then we'll go back in with a planter. We got a 12 row planter, so then we'll fill it with a planter, then we go and just switch it all over and start planting beans with it.
Noah Newman:
What model planter do you have? Is it John Deere?
John Hanson:
Yeah, 1760, old box style.
Noah Newman:
And do you have any unique attachments or precision? Or what kind of bells and whistles do you have on it?
John Hanson:
We have an old 8100 down it with the integrated steering, got that wheel that moves itself, kind of. But it works good with the GPS because it lines up. I could pull the lines from my strip-till, put them on my planter, and then just go.
Noah Newman:
So you plant the corn, and then what's the process like when you have to switch it over to soybean mode? Is that a lot of work?
John Hanson:
No, not too bad. Just clean out the tanks like you normally do after... Any time you mess with any kind of fertilizer, you want to clean the tanks out, get all the fertilizer off, and then you go in, and where the meters are underneath the tank is where you put these half block shields in, because you're only doing about 50 to 60 pounds of beans per acre. And fertilizer, you're doing about three to 400 pounds an acre. So you got to slow the beans down a little bit from coming in there. You guys put those block off plates in and then you just do your calibration and your density, and kind of figure it out that way.
Noah Newman:
Now, are you using any nutrients when you plant soybeans?
John Hanson:
We haven't found anyone that's cheap enough that makes sense on return on investment. But there was one we tried a couple years ago, but it's not licensed in Iowa yet. It's called SymTRX. When you put that in the front tank, put our beans in the back tank and did it both at the same time, and we did a couple rounds. And we turned the fertilizer off, turned it on, turned it off. It was about a five to six bushel difference in between just the fertilizer, and it was only 10 bucks an acre for it.
Noah Newman:
Wow.
John Hanson:
Once Iowa approves of it, we'll be definitely buying some of that and putting that in there. That's a five, six bushel, 10 bucks an acre. That's good.
Noah Newman:
That's a good return on investment. So did they let you do just a trial?
John Hanson:
Yep, yep. We just demoed it. We only did one field, 50 acre field with it, so they let us demo it in Iowa. And then I think in Nebraska and covered the other state they approved of it, but Iowa still has not yet, which I'm not for sure why, but.
Noah Newman:
Interesting. What about with corn? What nutrients are you placing with corn when you plant?
John Hanson:
Both. In the fall time we'll do anhydrous or a CJ Bio product that's local to this area. It's high in sulfur, high in nitrogen. Put that down in the fall, and then we'll go back to the spring, make our strips with starter urea are dry. And then this year we had about 20 pounds of sulfur an acre. We just seen our sulfur level was low so we just threw some sulfur in, and the local co-op will mix it all for us, and then they'll bring us a truck and we'll just back under it, fill it whenever we need to, and go. So it's pretty good last few years.
Noah Newman:
What about your rates for urea? How much of that are you putting down?
John Hanson:
This year we're doing about 40 pounds actual end down with it. Then our normal rate of dry, and 20 pounds of sulfur.
Noah Newman:
And then do you do any side dressing or anything during the growing season, or is that it?
John Hanson:
Nope, that's it. That's all we do. It works pretty good for us. I had a field across the road from my house that went 240, so do the same exact anhydrous in the fall, and then strip-till in the spring and plant into it, and got some pretty good corn.
Noah Newman:
Yeah, that sounds pretty good. How do you apply the anhydrous in the fall? That's not with the strip... Is it with the strip-till rig?
John Hanson:
You can do it with this one, but we don't. We just have a local co-op company. They'll come out and they'll just put it on for us, do the custom line. We could do it ourselves too, but they just do it a lot. A few acres we got by the time we set up our rig and stuff and get it going, it makes sense just to hire them for not much an acre.
Noah Newman:
Yeah. What's the benefit of doing that in the fall? Just to get it settled in the soil?
John Hanson:
Yep. Kind of like that gets it. Like you said, you don't do the side dress or nothing in the spring or the summer. Somebody could get some rains and then... These nitrogen, you can't get it out there, so it's nice to have it already there, your majority of it already there, and then not have to go back to the second pass when the corn's growing and you run it over and all that fun stuff.
Noah Newman:
When did you start doing the method of planting soybeans with the strip-till rig, and what was your motivation for that? Just take me through that, how you discovered that that was a good way to go.
John Hanson:
Well, the start of our operation, we did it about five years ago. My cousin Brent is actually the vice president of SoilWarrior, Brent Brueland. He's a good guy. He lives a few miles away from us. He's my Dad's first cousin, so my second cousin.
Noah Newman:
Cool.
John Hanson:
So he got us all to listen. He said, "Guys are planting beans with this thing." I'm like, "No way," because we're stripping it, see the kind of wasted pass to go out there and strip it and then take my old 12 row out there and fill back in. It's like, well, Brent said these guys that do strip-tilling some beans, so I'm like, well, let's figure it out.
So the last five years have been a learning curve, and last year we've had between, I think our lowest was 55 acres or 55 bushel, and the highest was 68 bushel beans with the strip-till. We've had good results. We're up where the neighbors are at, we asked them what their yields are around and we're right at it. So it's not like we're getting affected by it.
So what we do, in the fall we'll combine our corn, and we have a combine that can't run the stock chopper yet on our combine, so we'll cut the stocks and then we'll go back in the spring and just plant our beans right into it. So it's saving us the rip in maybe two passes of fuel to cultivate and the leveling off the ripper marks. And so it takes off about three passes just right there alone.
Noah Newman:
Yeah, I was going to ask-
John Hanson:
That's fuel, time, maintenance, labor.
Noah Newman:
Yeah, I was going to say, what does it do for you economically to combine that? And do you have estimates on how much money you're saving, maybe?
John Hanson:
Oh, it's huge. It's a big fuel savings, that's for sure. And I know Brent when he first started talking to us was about $65 an acre with labor and that stuff, but at today's prices I'm sure it's probably higher than that now. By the time you do $4 fuel or $5 fuel and you're ripping it all, then you go back to fuel cultivate it, a lot of guys around our area is so dry, they've already fuel cultivated all their core stock grounds once. Now they'll have to do it again and then plant. So if we just let ours lay, then we'll go in and just put beans in our SoilWarrior and plant them right at the same time.
Noah Newman:
And then throughout the season, are you doing fuller applications or anything?
John Hanson:
Nope, just for normal pre and then we'll do a post.
Noah Newman:
Oh, what do you use for that?
John Hanson:
We're using list beans.
Noah Newman:
Okay.
John Hanson:
So this is our pre-down. I can't remember what for sure, pretty reasonably sure we switched because enlist didn't cover our respray we had to do.
Noah Newman:
Is there anything unique about the SoilWarrior that allows you to do this with soybeans that other strip-till toolbars wouldn't? Or can people with other non-SoilWarrior strip toolbars do this as well?
John Hanson:
Yeah, I'm not for sure if they can it or not because our take is all the whole thing's mall. Sometimes you'll have the strip-till to look at like a Montag, like tank to pull behind it. So I'm not for sure if they'd be able to pull the beans out and then put it in the rows. SoilWarrior tanks are above the row and then you have a meter right there. We'll put the beans in the back tank because they flow faster. That's my thinking. I don't know if there's any theory to it or not. But I like to put it in the back tank right above the meters and then right to the rows. And I could put three pro boxes of beans in one tank, so I could go for a long time without filling back up.
Noah Newman:
Gotcha. Do you know, what are your seeding rates for corn and soybeans?
John Hanson:
With corn, we like to see around the 34 to 35 range. Anywhere in there is good for us. Beans, we've been in about 150 this last few years. We bumped up to 155 this year I think, or 160 I think, just to get more out there.
Noah Newman:
I gotcha.
John Hanson:
Just kind of experiment with it, and if it doesn't make any difference, we'll go back down to 150. But we're still learning the curve with us. We've only been doing it five years, so.
Noah Newman:
Oh yeah, not a lot of time. And then, because you always hear some strip-tillers make strips in the fall, some do it in the spring. What's your biggest reason for doing it in the spring?
John Hanson:
Just that we don't have to... A lot of guys will have a freshener, they'll put a three point bar on their tractor or they'll just go back to the same strips with the same rig and do it again. And I just thought, well, if we just do a majority of our anhydrous in the fall, and in the spring we have to make a track anyways either way. So I just think we've been lucky those two springs to not have a wet one. Nothing works in the wet.
Noah Newman:
Yeah.
John Hanson:
But just timing. And we could do our starter. A big thing is a starter and our dry and sulfur is all right there, and then we plant right into it.
Noah Newman:
Yeah. What do you need to change up? If it's a really dry spring, what kind of adjustments do you have to make?
John Hanson:
Not too much because with our strip-till we don't touch the ground until we go to plant or make our strips. So there's moisture there. Like these guys that, not saying the right way or wrong way to do anything, but they work the ground once and then they work it again, you get to work it again. I mean, that's three times you work it, you open it up, get the sun and the heat in there. And with us it's covered, and then you only do 33% of the field so you're not opening the field up to all the elements, and there's moisture there. And we haven't had that. Last year was pretty dry but we still were planting in moisture last year. I think it's a big key of it, that's holding the moisture in and you're not breaking the ground open, letting the sun and wind get down in there.
Noah Newman:
And then I'll wrap things up for this edition of the Strip-Till Farmer Podcast. Thanks to John Hanson, and once again, thanks to our sponsor DigiFarm for making this series possible. And use that promo code DigiFarm at striptillconference.com to get 15% off your National Strip-Tillage Conference registration. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you next time. Have a great day.
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