Reducing Spring Fieldwork With Proper Fall Tillage
From Soutwest Ag Partners www.southwestag.ca
(Chatam, ON)… As growers in Ontario take to the fields to harvest their crops, planning for next year’s growing season has already begun. Anticipating next year’s crop needs and planting strategy is foremost in their minds as they harvest this year’s crops while looking for ways to improve yields and maintain good soil health.
South West Ag Partners’ agronomy experts are encouraging growers to begin fieldwork this fall to prepare fields for the spring. With the introduction of their Sustainable Cropping Systems, SW Ag has included new tools in their agronomy matrix, including a strip tillage offering, helping growers maximize the productivity of their fields while remaining mindful of soil health and environmental concerns.
“We have spent the last several months pulling together the equipment, the agronomic expertise and the latest in GPS technologies to build this innovative program offering for our customers. We are now ready to begin integrating these programs into our fall offerings,” says Rick Youlton, SW Ag marketing manager.
SW Ag’s strip tillage offering incorporates four core areas: tillage equipment, agronomics, precision agriculture services and custom application of nutrients to design individual cropping recommendations for customers. A key aspect of the new offering is the use of a SoilWarrior® strip-tillage machine. Strip tillage offers the advantage of minimum tillage while strategically placing nutrients in the root zone where they are readily available to the growing plant.
“We are excited to bring this equipment to our customers,” Youlton says. “With our custom applicator service, our customers can take advantage of the benefits of zone tillage without incurring the investment in equipment, allowing customers to ‘try it before they buy it.’ Additionally, we are incorporating research and data collection with the acres we strip till to get a better understanding of the capabilities and expectations we can have with strip tillage.”
Fall Tillage Benefits
The use of strip tillage for fall field preparation has been increasing over the past couple of years. As the window of opportunity narrows in the spring to get all the work done, growers are looking to move some of the field preparation to fall. Increased regulations and concerns on nutrient management curtail some fertilizer applications. With strip tillage, the seedbed can be prepped and the nutrients incorporated into the soil in the fall.
“When the crop is out, we can get on the fields with a strip tiller that allows us to put fertilizer on in the fall and spread out the time of our fieldwork,” says Peter Johnson, well-known Ontario agronomist and senior agronomist for the strip tillage project. “You don’t need to cram everything into 10 days in the spring. It is one pass with the strip tiller, and fertility and the soil is ready for spring. With fall tillage done, you can also work in a cover crop, if needed.”
Benefits of strip tillage:
Listed below are the benefits of strip tillage in fall or spring.
- Reduced Soil Erosion: Crop residues help keep sediment and phosphorus in the field, protecting streams and lakes.
- Improved Soil Structure: Decreased soil disturbance and increased levels of residue builds the soil’s organic matter and increases the number of microbes and earthworms compared to more intensive tillage systems.
- Ideal Seedbed: Strip tillage creates more favourable soil temperature, soil moisture and aeration conditions for planting. Producers with large acreages, high surface residues or poor draining soils can often begin planting earlier compared to no-till and other reduced-tillage systems.
- Optimal Nutrient Placement: Strip till allows mixing of fertilizer right in the root zone where plants can easily take up the nutrients. Better placement of nutrients can reduce fertilizer use and costs.
- Less Environmental Impact: Strip tillage breaks macropores in the fertilized zone, which should reduce phosphorus movement to tile. It also places fertilizer in the ground, which should reduce surface phosphorus movement.
- Comparable Yields/Better Returns: Yields from strip-till fields are comparable to full surface tillage and are often better than no till in corn-on-corn production. While strip tillage doesn’t always result in higher yields, it does reduce input costs, which improves net profit per acre.
- Timeliness and Efficiency: Growers save trips across the field, fuel, fertilizer and labour in a strip-till system compared to other tillage systems
Grower Learning Group
Through the SW Ag VERITAS group, those farmers signed up for strip-till work will be part of a collective learning group. A team of VERITAS employees and Peter Johnson will be using yield monitoring, soil testing and other measurements to identify how well the practice of strip tillage works in their growing area. Adding a learning component to the offering gives the farmers the chance to learn from one another as they begin incorporating a new cropping practice. The ultimate objective of the project is to prove and demonstrate that strip tillage can be a more sustainable cropping system than the traditional systems being employed by most growers.
“We are not just bringing in a new piece of equipment to run in the fields,” says David Page, SW Ag sales manager. “We want to bring in entire suite of offerings that, when used together, can benefit our growers. We will be incorporating our precision ag services, our testing and yield monitoring and overall agronomic expertise to work alongside our customers to evaluate this system. Adding a research component will give us the data we and our customers need to honestly evaluate the program.”
Growers interested in learning more about the SW Ag Sustainable Cropping Systems offerings or to sign up for fall tillage should contact their local SW Ag location or call Rick Youlton at 517- 380-0491or e-mail at RickY@southwestag.ca.
This project was funded in part through Growing Forward 2, a federal-provincial-territorial initiative. The Agricultural Adaptation Council assists in the delivery of Growing Forward 2 in Ontario.
South West Ag Partners, established in 2001 as a result of a merger between St. Clair Agri Services, LTD and Kent County Fertilizers LTD, works with southwestern Ontario growers to provide the information and services they need to grow the highest-quality products at maximum yields.