A no-tiller’s soil has been getting harder every year and he wants to know what he can do to loosen it and develop a more normal root system. So, he asks fellow no-tillers on the No-Till Farmer sponsored Web site Bulletin Board. This and other questions have produced a flood of discussions lately.

No-tillers can discuss ideas and techniques 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at www.no-tillfarmer.com, reaching thousands of fellow no-tillers.

Here’s what fellow no-tillers had to say about compaction and root system problems, spring strip-tilling using a mole knife with anhydrous ammonia, direct drilling into frozen ground and what type of no-till coulters are best.

Harder Every Year.

We have been 100 percent no-till in a corn and soybean rotation for 12 to 15 years. At this time yields are running 20 percent less than the conventional tillage people in the area. Our soil is a Morley/Blount complex that just seems to be getting harder each year.

We are using a John Deere 7240 planter with Rawson coulters and have had a very good final stand the last couple years. Our corn and soybeans plants are generally quite spindly with a very shallow root system.

Any suggestions as to what we can do to loosen this soil to develop a more normal root system?

—Paul

ptudoe@cassnet.com

Pull In The Fall.

Get a Blue Jet Sub-tiller, Tye Paratill or a Worksaver subsoiler (which is very close to a Paratill) and pull it through your fields in the…