Josh Lloyd - Kansas Tuesday 18th May 2010

Josh With His Beloved Residue

Josh runs a continuous no till cropping enterprise at Clay Centre Kansas. His rotations include Corn , soyabeans, sunflowers, Milo and Winter wheat. This year Josh is using a John Deere 1890 single disc seeder to plant all of his crops, including the warm season ones. These row crops eg. Corn, are normally done with a precision planter by a contractor. Josh believes that the quality of his JD disc seeder will now allow him to plant all his crops himself without using a contractor. After visiting Australia Josh has been slowly implementing controlled traffic on his property. Which he believes is a good companion to zero till.

Single Disc JD with Thompson Wheel Furrow Crumbler

In large areas of Kansas the farms were forced by government regulations to put terraces (ie Contour banks) over their farms for conservation measures to stop erosion. We noticed that many of these were on land with a relatively low sloping gradient. This makes them fairly useless but makes the paddocks a pain in the arse to work. Josh has found over time utilizing zero till seeding and systems of stubble retention etc. The contour banks are no longer required but he is not allowed to remove them by law.

Good Corn Kansas Style

After getting the new seeder he changed the furrow crumbler behind the seeding disc to a Thompson wheel which he feels works better at making sure the furrow is closed over with friable soil. The Thompson wheel has more pronounced teeth and is a bit more aggressive than the original part. As usual when you are replacing a genuine part they are very costly. Josh has got onto a supplier of after market parts for the press wheels and depth gauge wheels which are half the price of the John Deere lot. A couple of hours well spent with Josh.

One problem that we have encountered is the discrepancies in the no till terminologies and definitions used by farmers and researchers. We have found that many use the term no till each with their own different meanings. For example some interpret no till to mean the continuous use of minimal disturbance disc seeders with full stubble retention where others use it to mean knife point usage and others use no till to describe their occasional use of no till equipment, however they still cultivate the soil at some point in their rotation.

I feel that this needs to be straightened out worldwide and a standardization of terminology agreed upon amongst all no till groups to help to clarify what people are doing on their properties and this would be a good project to add to my study. Today has got my brain humming along.