When Mike Linnehan fires up his tractor and no-till planter, he doesn’t want to stop for any reason. He likes to keep everything going in one smooth pass, if at all possible.

That’s the reason why this Sparta, Wis., no-tiller made a few changes to his operation last spring. He was tired of stopping to refill his no-till planter with fertilizer. Even more so, he was sick of stopping to remove pesky residue that built up between his no-till planter rows.

The Operation

To provide a more efficient system, Linnehan invested in Rawson coulters for more precise nitrogen placement.

“I put on the Rawson coulters and added an injector nozzle behind the coulter,” he says. “We apply 13-8-20 with floaters and a liquid suspension type fertilizer prior to no-tilling. Then we go back with 20 gallons of 28 percent nitrogen per acre sprayed on top of the ground and 20 gallons injected behind the Rawson coulters.”

In addition, Linnehan also applies 100 pounds of dry fertilizer with his no-till planter.

“Instead of planting 9 acres without stopping, I can plant 25 acres,” he says. “It saves time and lets me no-till more acres per day.”

Solutions That Work

The other big area that needed immediate attention was residue plugging with the no-till planter.

Since the manufactured solutions just weren’t cutting it, Linnehan decided to construct his own answer.

“I thought about building a wheel the year before,” he says. “I was looking for anything to help, since I would have…