One-Pass Strip-Till Planter

One-Pass STrip-Till Planter PLANTERS Planters 16-6-11 "It tills a 10-in. wide seedbed in front of each planter unit and leaves the rest of the ground undisturbed," says Rodney Raether, Howell, Mich., who built a one-pass "strip-till" planter out of two Howard Rotovator tillers mounted ahead of a 6-row planter, a one-pass setup that al-lows him to till, spray herbicides, and plant in one trip through the field. "It works under even the most adverse conditions," says Raether, who's used the till-planter to seed crops directly into heavy clay sod. "I like it better than other no-till planters because it makes a well-tilled seed bed in front of each planter row unit which results in better germination. The undisturbed soil between rows reduces erosion and makes it harder for weeds to sprout." Raether already owned one Rotovator tiller. He found another at a salvage yard and combined the two into a single 180-in. wide unit. He bolted the two hood assemblies together and then made a new rotor out of 7-in. dia. gas pipeline. He remounted the 5-in. tiller blades on the new rotor, spacing pairs of blades 30 in. apart, with a 10-in. gap between each two blades. Each pair of blades tills a 10-in. wide strip. He pulls the strip-till planter with a 100 hp Case tractor. "One disadvantage is that I can go only 2 to 3 mph," he notes. "Also, the planter is so heavy that when I lifted it at the end of the field at first I could barely turn around. I had to put about 1,000 lbs. of weights on front of the tractor." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Rodney F. Raether, 2650 Fishbeck Rd., Howell, Mich. 48843 (ph 517 546-4498).

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