Spring Tillage

Seedbed preparation is an important consideration as farmers get ready for the 2019 planting season.  Justin Render, marketing product specialist for Kinze Manufacturing, says spring tillage can be a very effective tool for pre-plant field preparation: "A lot of operations want to go out in the field and use it to warm and dry some of those cooler, damper soils, heavy high clay content types of soils. Open them up and dry them out really to get into the field earlier with the planter. as far as incorporating herbicide or fertilizer applications, getting them worked in. Also some of the messes that we created, lodge crops, ruts from combines and green carts to level that field up as well as taking out that first flush of weeds and then just general seed bed preparation. Preparing the soil before the planter makes its pass across the field in the springtime." Render says caution is necessary so that tillage does not cause soil compaction on wet soils