Here are a couple photos from Friday between Decatur and Springfield. Strip till demo in bean stubble mostly but stuck it in the ground in a neighbor's wet corn headlands/road side nearby. We had it set pretty well for the bean stubble but did not really have the time nor a good spot to set it for the corn ground. It was wet under there. Very little corn harvested yet. Bean harvest really only getting underway as I headed back north on I-39.

One of the things that came up in discussions Friday is the fall vs spring strip till question with our Dawn units.  Usually I like to give a rule of thumb which has evolved with many of our customers: strip into wheat stubble in late summer or early fall; strip into cornstalks in the spring; and strip into bean stubble either way with a strong preference to spring, especially on rolling ground.

However as Bill (Black Dirt) and I were discussing, some of this ground is almost like gumbo.

In gumbo, generally the less you do in the spring, the better. Lightly with the planter with row cleaners and Curvetines is about it. in fields with gumbo - like soils probably best to strip in the fall as shown as the lesser of several evils. In this demonstration we were not putting down any fertilizer.

Jim at Dawn

(strip till C IL Bean stubble 10-03-08 IMGA0698.JPG)

(strip till C IL Bean stubble 10-03-08 IMGA0699.JPG)

(strip till C IL wet corn headlands 10-03-08 IMGA0712.JPG)

strip till C IL Bean stubble 10-03-08 IMGA0698.JPG (99KB - 68 downloads)

strip till C IL Bean stubble 10-03-08 IMGA0699.JPG (111KB - 85 downloads)

strip till C IL wet corn headlands 10-03-08 IMGA0712.JPG (110KB - 86 downloads)