The other day, I paid a visit to Tanner Schoff, a young farmer who no-tills and strip-tills in Walnut, Ill. Tanner was struggling with heavy residue in his system. So, he invented a combine attachment called the Sharp Harvest Rezidue Reaper to cut through stalks. Let’s see how it works. 

“This is a 15-inch diameter blade. It has about a 4.5-inch-wide footprint. Even if you’re not quite centered to the stalk when combining, that’s a wide enough footprint to consistently cut up the root balls and stalks. These kind of act as a gauge wheel as well. They’re welded 2 inches from the bottom of the blade. So, the blade is going to go in 2 inches plus a little more. You’re getting a consistent depth of about 2.5-3 inches. We’ve noticed these also help with flowing trash as well, grabs the ground, keeps trash flowing within the arm there. The whole blade design does make the product, that whole structure there.”

Tanner says the tool has really sped up the residue decomposition process in his system, and his fields look much healthier in the winter now. 

Watch the full version of this episode of Conservation Ag Update.