On this episode of Conservation Ag Update, brought to you by Martin-Till, we’re broadcasting from the road at the 2024 Farm Progress Show in Boone, Iowa!

We highlight some of the latest innovations at the show, including a new row cleaner from Martin-Till, autonomous filling station from Solinftec and a harvest weed seed control unit from Redekop. Plus, we catch up with Leesburg, Ga., strip-tiller Alex Harrell for his top takeaways from his record-breaking 218-bushel soybean yield.

Later in the episode, Iowa State’s Mehari Tekeste and Ag Tire Talk’s James Tuschner detail a new research study on tire PSI levels and compaction. Finally, in the Cover Crop Connection, Taylor Moreland of Agri Spray Drones checks in from the demo fields to show how no-tillers can seed cover crops and more with drones.

This episode of Conservation Ag Update is brought to you by Martin-Till.

Our customers believe that Martin-Till®️ products provide an excellent return on their investment. We know this because a large percentage of them are repeat customers since the beginning in 1991. Our planter attachments help make it possible to plant into higher levels of residue and moisture. Higher levels of mulch means less erosion, improved soil tilth and fertility, which can reduce production costs.

Martin-Till’s goal is to increase yields and save you time and money. We hope you find something from our product offerings of row cleaner, UMO’s, closing wheels systems and recently added concaves that will make this year’s planting & harvesting go better for you. After all, you deserve the best!

 


TRANSCRIPT

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Martin-Till’s Walking Tandem Frame Mounted Row Cleaner

Alright I’m standing in front of these soybeans here. It’s a good reminder when you’re planting soybeans or any crop for that matter, it’s important for no-tillers to have a good row cleaner. Right now, we’re going to toss it over to Steve Martin with Martin-Till to talk about their walking tandem frame mounted row cleaner. 

“That's the walking tandem mode. It follows all the ground contours. If you need to carry it in looser ground, you can just turn that T-handle and select the notch. There's numerous positions you can lock it in and now it's controlling the depths of the road cleaner through the parallel linkage, which is also active, of course, when it's in tandem mode. It's got a lot of moving points there. We're really excited about this product, it's going to be a game changer in frame mounted products.” 

“We're going to be in beta this spring. Still, just today is first time it's been shown. So we're we're really excited about this product. And, if anybody's interested in running it in beta, I suggest get with your dealer sooner rather than later.”

Thanks a lot Mackane, we’ll check back in here in a little bit. It is hot out here. 90 degrees, we’re pushing. Let’s head inside and cool off.

Redekop Showcases Harvest Weed Seed Control Unit 

Inside the Varied Technologies tent we go. And inside we came across this Redekop Harvest Weed Seed Control Unit. Eric Schuler shows how it could be a game-changing tool for your weed-fighting arsenal. 

“As the combine goes to the field, the cab is going to be this direction, and this is going to be the back side of the combines. As it processes the material, it’s gravity fed into the hopper that you see here. And these are going to be spinning at about 2800-3000 RPM, so it’s a very high horsepower machine, but what it does is guides those seeds into the set of rotors and it’s going to crack the seed, damage the seed, basically destroy any germination of that material, that way it’s a clean field that’s left after the combine goes through the field. It’s a very simple product but also a very effective product. We get a lot of questions and interests from growers that are non-GMO operations, organic operations, and we’ve even sold these into farmers that are traditional corn and soybean, and use traditional herbicide programs, whether a 2-pass soybean operation or whatever.” 

Record-Breaking Strip-Tiller Attends Farm Progress Show

Now let’s see what’s popping inside the Pioneer tent. Alex Harrell is in the house and he’s a popular guy, fresh off his record-breaking 218-bushel soybean yield. We caught up with the Leesburg, Ga., strip-tiller for more of his top takeaways from a record-breaking summer.

Alex: “Everybody wants the silver bullet, and we all know that we don’t have that. It’s just a systems approach. We plant early, we try to get into the grain fill during those long days before summer solstice. We do a lot of early season management. We tissue sample. We do a lot of late season management to help increase seed size, paired with having a long grain fill day. I’m a firm believer that a lot of extra bushels come from that.”

Noah: “Also, as we’ve talked about in the past, these high yield plots, the goal is to learn from them and see what you can apply to more acres correct?”

Alex: “Correct. We want to see what we learned from those, what worked, what doesn’t work. And we take what does work and apply it to our overall standard production to see if we can raise our overall farm average, which is what really matters.”

Noah: “Strip-till and cover crops, why has that been a winning combination for you on your farm?”

Alex: “We use the cover crops for erosion purposes. We have a lot of winter rains. If we don’t get that ground covered, we get a lot of erosion areas in the field. And we strip into those cover crops in the spring.”

We’ve moved outside the Iowa State tent here, and as you can tell they are getting fired up for the college football season here in the Hawkeye State, even though it’s a Cyclone guy here. Right now I’m going to toss it back to Mackane. 

Researching Tire PSI Levels & Compaction

Thanks Noah, alright well earlier I had a chance to stop inside the Iowa State University tent. And I talked with some of their researchers as well as ag tire expert James Tuschner. Let’s toss it over to them right now. We’re going to talk about PSI levels and compaction. 

Mehari Tekeste: “So at the lab, what we start measuring is a footprint on an artificial soil, ag tires, a different higher inflation pressures, different load. So what we found is when you measure it on an artificial footprint, you're getting two advantages. One, we found out that the footprint is higher about 80% than a hard surface measurement, what everybody was doing.”

“The other thing is with the artificial soil, we are measuring 3D. It's a tire penetrated right depth, which you cannot measure on a hard surface. Why is it important is, doing it in our artificial soil, our artificial soil mimics about five typical Midwestern type soils in its penetration or sinkage measurement. It mimics very close to a field conditions.”

“And ag tires, when they are in the field, they deflect, tire deflect, soil deflect. That's the thing that we're doing at the lab with the artificial soil. The advantage of doing it with the artificial soil, it's a repeatable test. And we've been using it the same consistent behavior almost five years now. We measured in 2019, and we're measuring it every three years. It's mechanical behavior is consistently the same. And it's giving variability within less than 4% in the footprint measurement.”

James Tuschner: “So let me just get this straight. So first of all compare it to a flat plate. We've got about 80% difference in really the shear area because of the malleable surface. Right. And the physical properties of the tire. Correct. And the other piece of it too, with the artificial soil, is is that it's a repeatable format. So it's not like it's one soil Midwest, eastern, southeastern, whatever.”

“It's the same the exact touch every single time. And you can repeat the results and you always have a something that is consistent. Is that correct?”

Mehari Tekeste: “That's correct.”

I never get tired of hearing about ag tires. But for now, we’re going to toss it back to you Noah. 

Solinftec Debuts New Autonomous Filling Station for Solix Robot

Not tired at all after 3 cups of coffee. Thanks, Mackane. Check this out. It’s a new autonomous solar powered filling station for Solinftec’s Solix Ag Robot. This will allow the Solix to operate 100% autonomously throughout the season without the need for a manual refill. The official commercial launch of the docking station will be announced soon. But the Solix robot is in its second commercial year. It uses cameras and AI to target spray weeds. And scans the field to provide data on crop health and pests. Mackane’s got his eye on some more precision technology over at the demo fields. Mackane, take it away! 

Agri-Spray Drones Can Seed Cover Crops

 Thanks Noah. One of the coolest parts of the show is checking out the in-field demos. Earlier I had the chance to go to the Agri-Spray Drones tent where they were flying drones. Here’s how you can use drones to seed cover crops. CEO Taylor Moreland tells us more about it.

“So this over here, this is the cover crop, well, the "granular material", applicator. So on the bottom there, it's got a spinner disc. About this big in diameter, you can vary the speed of that, obviously, and vary the height the drone operates that. And then the top, the whole top opens up, so you can fill it with a seed tender, dump buckets or bags in there. It'll hold, about 100, 120 pounds in there.”

“So over-seeding cover crop, that's an application that, not a lot of guys are doing right now because timing is key on that. You got to, if you're putting out radishes or turnips or clover or whatever you're doing, small seeded cover crops, you gotta do it early. You got to do it before your crop comes out of the field and want to do that is from the air. and then you got to wait for a week where you've got rain, to get it established. And you've got to wait to where you've got, some defoliation starting to occur within the crops, so that when it does germinate, then you can get sunlight through the canopy.”

“If you're trying to coordinate that with a helicopter or airplane, it's very difficult. But if you've got a drone on the farm, you can do it yourself. And efficiency is very good with cover crop where you're putting out, you know, ten, 15 pounds per acre with small seeded cover crops, you can cover well, about ten acres per tank load, in about a ten minute time frame.That's going to be revolutionary, we'll look at cover crop over- seeding and especially with the carbon credits, that guys are looking at now too.”

Have an interesting photo or video from your farm? Or a story you’d like us to feature on the broadcast? Send me an email at Nnewman@lesspub.com.

And that will wrap things up this edition of Conservation Ag Update. Until next time, for more stories visit no-tillfarmer.com, striptillfarmer.com and covercropstrategies.com. Before we go, let’s send it out to Dave Hula for a preview of his upcoming presentation at the National Strip-Tillage Conference. Thanks for tuning in! Have a great day!