Here are some photos I took yesterday in SC MN of corn harvest and strip tilling into the just-harvested stalks a few rounds later. This was some VERY good yielding corn. But those stalks were TOUGH! My goodness they were tough! And what a day for a wind generator... I think this was a very interesting large and successful operation. These are folks doing a good economic, agrinomic and conservation oriented job on a large scale

The customer was working to leave the stubble tall. The wind was incredible all day long. However with the stalks still attached to the ground there was not too much residue blowing. The tall stalks, even as tough as they were, pushed over rather than into the tires. The combine had knife rolls, though that still cut the tops of the stalk off as shown. In this situation I believe cast iron rolls would have left even more of the residue intact on the stalk and attached to the ground. In this climate anything chopped/shredded has a good chance of blowing to the fenceline or maybe to Iowa!

The strips were working about 5" deep. The operator was doing a good job of driving manually with tractor tires on the stalks. Ground speed was generally 6.5-7.5 mph. Personally I would have liked to see us run at 6 mph. We did not plug up at all in the time I was there.

I do have to confess that in this case in the corn on corn, due to settings required, the hills and the ground speeds we were running at, we did take a bit more than 10 hp per row as discussed in a thread on the Machinery talk page the other day. I'm guessing it was 12 or 13 hp/row for the Pluribus units. This was an interesting startup of a new system where the customer is planning on variable rate application of dry and liquid fertilizers to a soil test prescription. 

In this high-yielding corn I was amazed by the number of high-speed trips the length of the field made by the grain cart shown to fill the semi's at the road end of the field. Even with an 8 row head the combine just could not make it very far without the cart. The cart operator was running back and forth the length of the field with straddle duals going up and down BETWEEN the rows - right where we wanted to strip a few rounds later!

The strip till system tractor, toolbar and JD cart were all setup to run ON the just harvested rows. The combine and grain cart + tractor were all running between the rows. So these strips were being made in very hard trafficked soils, wet black soil and with massive amounts of very tough residue.  The customers and visitors seemed to like the job we were doing. This is an area where there is more and more corn on corn to feed the ethanol plants and local feed needs.

Earlier in the day on the way to the corn field shown we ran the machine in some bean stubble with 2 year old corns stalks still evident to check our bean stubble settings. These were 15" beans. The customer was laying out new rows with the autosteer so we did not orient the strips to anything in this field. You can get away with that in bean stubble but not cornstalks as pictured in the corn on corn pics. In this black cold soil area the residue just doesn't break down as it does farther south and east.

These strips will be very nice places to plant in the spring. You will need Trashwheels on the planter, however even in that wind it did not look like things were going to blow. If they didn't blow yesterday they will never blow! One neighbor/visitor felt we were raising enough black soil to hold. The next tool in the field is the planter.

Jim at Dawn

Here are some photos. I took a large number of photos I think these are the best. Apologies if you have a dial up.

(Dawn Strip Till MN corn on corn combine cart tall stalks 200 plus 10-13-06 img 2944.JPG)

(Dawn Strip Till MN corn on corn combine rear tall stalks 200 plus 10-13-06 img 2952.JPG)

(Dawn Strip Till MN corn on corn vision front tall tough stalks 200 plus 10-13-06 img 2955.JPG)

(Dawn Strip Till MN corn on corn view fwd lots residue tall tough stalks 200 plus 10-13-06 img 2964.JPG)

(Dawn Strip Till MN corn on corn pluribus top RH view from cart nice black strips tough stalks 200 plus 10-13-06 img 2980.JPG)

(Dawn Strip Till MN corn on corn pluribus top LH view from cart black strip tough stalks 200 plus 10-13-06 img 2957.JPG)

(Dawn Strip Till MN corn on corn view to rear strips and cart duals tough 200 plus residue 10-13-06 img 2961.JPG)

(Dawn Strip Till MN corn on corn vision fwd and rh froam cart before after tough stalks 200 plus 10-13-06 img 2973.JPG)

(Dawn Strip Till MN corn on corn rear view strips behind air cart 200 plus 10-13-06 img 2972.JPG)

(Dawn Strip Till MN corn on beans fwd conditions 35ft platform 10-13-06 img 2929.JPG)

(Dawn Strip Till MN corn on beans view to rear strips and 2 yr corn stalks cart duals 10-13-06 img 2933.JPG)

Dawn Strip Till MN corn on corn combine cart tall stalks 200 plus 10-13-06 img 2944.JPG (92KB - 463 downloads)

Dawn Strip Till MN corn on corn combine rear tall stalks 200 plus 10-13-06 img 2952.JPG (95KB - 429 downloads)

Dawn Strip Till MN corn on corn vision front tall tough stalks 200 plus 10-13-06 img 2955.JPG (93KB - 424 downloads)

Dawn Strip Till MN corn on corn view fwd lots residue tall tough stalks 200 plus 10-13-06 img 2964.JPG (61KB - 408 downloads)

Dawn Strip Till MN corn on corn pluribus top RH view from cart nice black strips tough stalks 200 plus 10-13-06 img 2980.JPG (72KB - 408 downloads)

Dawn Strip Till MN corn on corn pluribus top LH view from cart black strip tough stalks 200 plus 10-13-06 img 2957.JPG (66KB - 404 downloads)

Dawn Strip Till MN corn on corn view to rear strips and cart duals tough 200 plus residue 10-13-06 img 2961.JPG (98KB - 419 downloads)

Dawn Strip Till MN corn on corn vision fwd and rh froam cart before after tough stalks 200 plus 10-13-06 img 2973.JPG (94KB - 426 downloads)

Dawn Strip Till MN corn on corn rear view strips behind air cart 200 plus 10-13-06 img 2972.JPG (87KB - 413 downloads)

Dawn Strip Till MN corn on beans fwd conditions 35ft platform 10-13-06 img 2929.JPG (84KB - 404 downloads)

Dawn Strip Till MN corn on beans view to rear strips and 2 yr corn stalks cart duals 10-13-06 img 2933.JPG (96KB - 433 downloads)