Crop Tech Consulting (CTC) was started by Ken and Jeanenne Ferrie in 1991 in Heyworth Il. Now more 20 years later the business has expanded in both size and scope.
One of the founding pillars of Crop-Tech Consulting is integrating a systems approach to farming. Crop-Tech is continually adding to their expertise and services. To aid in this process, CTC conducts over 150 test plots every year and works in conjunction with Farm Journal to gather research data on the industry’s equipment, practices, and technology.
Now in addition to soil testing and recommendations, CTC offers services pertaining to yield mapping, variable rating, insect and disease monitoring, bug clinics, thermal imagery and technical support for most of the top brands of both equipment and software. Crop-Tech also helps farmers with seedbed, residue, and manure Management.
The Crop Tech office is also the host site for Farm Journal Media’s Illinois Corn College events.
Stubborn as a mule...Ken Ferrie, Farm Journal Field Agronomist, recently wrote an article, "10 Smart Ways to Start Cutting Your Fertilizer Bill". As Chief Scientist for SmartNute, when I approached him and said SNX30 outperforms all of his "10 Smart Ways", he ignored me. Sadly, narrow-minded thinking can hide the truth from you.
Fight drainage in the uplands or in flooded crops, roads, buildings, and infrastructure? No such thing as disappearing water, wetlands do serve a purpose guys. Loss of pastures, hay crops, perennial root systems, etc are all impacting our watersheds collectively.
Yeah, well, the Global Warming "threat" is a joke when you consider the in-your-face, we actually have immediate control of . . . chemical pollution we are saturating the earth and our foods with. Pesticides, Herbicides, anti-biotics, you name it. Any . . . TINY . . . amount humans are adding to the already everpresent climate change dynamics the earth already cycles through absolutely pales in comparison to what we are spraying onto crops, the land, and getting into our livestock and produce. Not to mention the billions of tons of plastics either being buried or floaring around our oceans.
It’s all BS this climate change crap will destroy America. You better wake up and stop turning our food into fuel and stop the WEF climate change crap.
The point is this, that lots of vertical tillage tools that are performing like a disc harrow, produce results just like a sweep equipped field cultivator.
It sure would have been helpful to know what was used that you called vertical tillage, Ken. One can't simply use the term anymore and know much about what was done.. The result looks pretty good but more soil needed to be removed from both for a more accurate assessment. Too bad you didn't compare to a no-till plant in the same field. 😂 That could get offensive couldn't it.
Hi there! I'm not a farmer (yet), how/ what does stripping mean? And how is that different from tilling? Curious how you would mechanically get that deep down into the soil without having the same negative effects of tilling. Ty, cheers!
During the derecho in Iowa, with a 444 corn head with no reel or cones, harvest direction was everything. It fed the best into the head when it was pointed away from the combine, and at an angle. With some side angle, the snoots could get under it. If it was pointing towards you at an angle, it would feed into the head, but plug constantly.
The method used to kill your cover crop DOES make a difference as well: that looks like the result of using an herbicide to top kill, glyphosate, perhaps? Now you have oxidizing organic matter above the soil horizon, and a lowered microbial load below on account of the antiseptic properties of the herbicide. Its another piece of gear, but using a flamer to top kill cover before seeding will preserve your microbes, and keep your soil healthy.
wow this government propaganda is thick. Biofuels cause CO2 lots of ways. You are using Nitrogen from Natural gas to grow the corn, you are burning the corn and plant to make the biofuel then you are burning the fuel in a car. There is nothing green about this, other than the government kickback money.
For Insect Heat Units: warm.isws.illinois.edu/warm/warm_pdd/default.aspx Soil Temps: warm.isws.illinois.edu/warm/soil/ If you are in Illinois the Illinois State Water Survey has several handy links. Some of their data you have to create a free account to look at.
BE ADVISED- Avenza has released a new updated version of their app (good-the old one need an upgrade badly...) & have abandoned all older android versions 8 and older. You have to go thru some changes to download an older version- its more trouble than it is worth. Obviously the author of the new ver is an ios man. !
Adding winged points will require more horsepower if pulling the machine at the same depth as before. The column of soil you are attempting to lift becomes bigger. You may be able to decrease your depth with the addition of wings to lessen the load, but you still need to watch for full lift in between the points. The amount that you could shallow the implement up will be very dependent upon soil types and conditions. When the implement gets too shallow you will see the soil start to shatter almost straight up from the edge of the wings, rather than lifting across the soil profile from point to point.
One of the problem running V-Ripper years ago was too much moisture the soil reducing the shattering of the soil.....we used a V-RIPPER PRIMARILY ON OUR COTTON GROUND the topsoil was 8 to 10 inches deep on top of mostly heavy clay the clay usally didn't get dry enough to subsoil till fall or we did subsoil some fields during summer on fallow ground
I usually have alot of leaves and debris running through the combine. My theory is that it creates a mat on the stipper plates and takes more grain into the combine .
Great video! Does ripper point have any effect on the depth needed for complete shatter? Example a 7in point on 30in spacing would need to run deeper than a 10in or a 14in point on 30in spacing? Or not?
