Grall_Orthman.jpg

Committing to Strip-Till Transforms High Plains Farm

Harold Grall credits good records, strip-till and new technology for his ability to double his farm size while cutting fuel and irrigation water.


Pictured Above: FREQUENT UPKEEP. Texas strip-tiller Harold Grall points to hardfacing on the shanks that is replaced twice a season because of their extensive time in the field. The two Orthman 1tRIPrs Grall uses are both equipped with fertilizer tubes for pre-plant mixtures and anhydrous ammonia application

Harold Grall already had extensive experience growing corn and grain sorghum in the Texas Panhandle when he bought out his mentor, Dale Coleman, and started farming on his own in 1994. At that time, he was farming 3,700 acres of High Plains silt-clay loam just north of Dumas, Texas, and was committed to ridge-till and furrow irrigation.

Today, he and his wife, Stacey, strip-till Hasta Farms’ 8,600 acres of land and have fine-tuned the operation to 90-93% continuous corn growing under 26 center-pivot irrigation systems — 10 of them half-mile-long, full-section rigs.

Grall says while he’s farming nearly twice the land today, he burns about 70% of the diesel fuel he used in the late 1990s.

“In 1997, we had 4,500 acres of row crops and burned 30,772 gallons of diesel fuel,” he says. “In 2015, we had 7,000 acres of row crops, and our fuel use was 22,033 gallons.”

His corn grows on 3-4 gallons per minute of irrigation water per acre, compared with 6 gallons per minute required in the 1990s, and his soil test results show his farm has doubled the organic matter it had 20 years ago.

Last season, which brought generous moisture, Hasta Farms binned a bumper crop…

To view the content, please subscribe or login.
 Premium content is for our Digital-only and Premium subscribers. A Print-only subscription doesn't qualify. Please purchase/upgrade a subscription with the Digital product to get access to all No-Till Farmer content and archives online. Learn more about the different versions and what is included.

Dmcmugtrail

Dan Crummett

Dan Crummett has more than 40 years in regional and national agricultural journalism including editing state farm magazines, web-based machinery reporting and has a long-term interest in no-till and conservation tillage. He holds B.S. and M.S. degrees from Oklahoma State University.

Top Articles

Current Issue

Cover_NTF_January_0125.jpg

No-Till Farmer

Get full access NOW to the most comprehensive, powerful and easy-to-use online resource for no-tillage practices. Just one good idea will pay for your subscription hundreds of times over.

Subscribe Now

View More

Must Read Free Eguides

Download these helpful knowledge building tools

View More
Top Directory Listings