Nobody likes the jerks and jolts of driving the tractor and sprayer over ruts, rows or bumps in the no-tilled fields. It’s not easy on the body and it certainly isn’t easy on equipment.

It’s this reason that sent Daniel Gillespie to the no-till drawing board. This no-tiller from Meadow Grove, Neb., grew tired of bouncing over irrigation track ruts.

“With long-term no-till, I wasn’t doing tillage every other year to fill in those tracks,” he explains. “So the tracks were getting deeper and deeper each year and it resulted in a severe impact on the machinery when I crossed them.”

The thought of crossing a deep track and breaking an axle on a sprayer filled with herbicides made Gillespie shudder. But the primary concern was the severe machinery metal fatigue that the ruts were causing.

“I visualized a machine as I was combining one year,” he says. “When the combine was bouncing through the ruts, you just don’t have time to stop and fix those costly breakdowns.”

Since Gillespie didn’t want to work the ground to smooth out ruts and ditches, he began to think of a way to smooth out pivot track ruts that would be compatible with no-till.

Solving The Problem.

After purchasing a 14-foot International 37 disc, Gillespie and his father tore it apart and spread the parts out on the shop floor. From there, he was able to pick and choose parts for his new machine.

“The disc cost $100, but I ended up buying…