By Joe Breker, Havana, North Dakota

In 1980, I planted my first no-till corn into small grain stubble. Although it worked well, I could see then that there was a need for fertilization placement and a concern about cooler soil temperatures caused from leaving the small grain stubble undisturbed. As years went on, there were several times that good small grain yields left me with excessive amounts a stubble. Just simply removing the stubble from in front of the planter unit did not do enough warming of the seed bed area and in heavy soil conditions caused planter performance problems due to wet soil just under the stubble. Several of the last fourteen years I have also seen reduced corn seedling vigor caused from toxic effects of high wheat residue levels when the stubble is not removed from the immediate corn row.

In the summer of 1992, my brother Eugene and I started toying with the idea of putting together a combination of equipment that would band fertilizer, remove residue, and till a narrow strip on 30-inch spacing. Our plan was to run this implement in the fall so that the tilled strip would have a chance to settle and firm over the winter. Then in the spring we could come with a row crop planter and plant directly on top of the blackened, fertilizer strips.

Finding a ready-made piece of equipment for doing this task proved to be difficult. We decided to modify a DMI fertilizer applicator and use in conjunction with a Concord 2000 air system. The applicator we set up produced 12 strips that were 30 inches apart. We also equipped it with a marker so that the indexing operation could be carried out as accurately as a person would want their corn planted. Each row on the applicator is equipped with a cutting coulter, an anhydrous knife, and a set of closure discs that kept the soil contained in the zone where the knife had run. We use anhydrous ammonia as our primary source of nitrogen and use the Concord air system to blow our other dry fertilizers down behind the knife.

The 1993 growing season turned out to be excessively wet and cold. The conditions were so far from normal that it is hard to decide if the indexing was of any great benefit. Even though we had a warmer blackened strip to plant the corn on, it was so wet that planted performance was poor at best and 25% of our acres didn’t even get planted.

I still think the concept has much potential and I plan to continue working with it in the future. This fall, because of wet harvest conditions, we were forced to work most of our wheat stubble just to smooth out the ruts. Mother Nature permitting, I will try indexing again in the fall of 1994.