When he moved to Missouri from Iowa, Don Hanson found out the soil was a whole lot different than it was in Iowa.
"We had terrific erosion problems as we went with it," Don says. "We started no-tilling. No-till worked wonderfully well for about 3-4 years. Then basically, we developed a crust on our soil that would come up, and it would be very greasy and very tight and then dry out very suddenly."
"The advantage of the SMART-TILL® was that we could go ahead and set it fairly rough in the fall," he says. "When I work with my SMART-TILL®, I leave the harrow up in the fall and try to leave my ground as rough as I can. Then in the spring when I come back, I straighten out my tines. So all I’m doing is loosening the ground a little bit and set my harrow very aggressive."
This method made an immense difference on the ditch and soil erosion compared to no-till. Plus, it cut his erosion by 75-95%.
"[SMART-TILL®] makes a fantastic one-trip tool in front of the planter," he added.
"We have found that by using this type of tillage that we still have structure in our soil," Don says. "Basically, if you use a disc or chisel or any of the other tools, you can drive out after rain and you’ll sink. And that’s where your compaction layer will be."
"If you use a SMART-TILL®, you’ll find that your compaction layer basically came back clear up to the surface," he says. "And you’ve cracked that surface to where it dries out; the ground will work beautifully in the spring. It’ll be a week ahead of the common no-tiller that does nothing."