The Rural Voice, 1992-08, Page 25Wheat was the first no -till crop
Gowland grew and still is a big part
of his operation.
this year has expanded to 14 acres.
He started with five acres of no -till
beans and now has 85 acres as well
as 60 acres of no -till wheat. Today he
combines no -till with small amounts
of minimum -till and conventional
tilling in his cropping.
One of the attractions of no -till
was in extending the life of
the machinery he owns. The
number of hours on the tractor and
cultivation equipment is greatly
reduced. There are trips over the
fields to spray to burn off the
remnants of other crops or weeds that
have sprung up, then pre -emergent or
post emergent spraying as well as
spraying for any particular weed
outbreaks, but there's only one
cultivation trip, the actual planting of
the seed.
One of the reasons for the switch
to no -till instead of minimum tillage
was the desire to save on equipment.
"I didn't feel I wanted to spend more
money on iron laying around." This
year he did buy a new corn planter
and made the modifications he felt
necessary to make it work under his
conditions. After looking at the
rented equipment he had used and
many other people's equipment, he
came up with a planter that is unique
to himself. "It's done what I expected
it to do," he says. There have been
problems with the planter itself, but
not with the no -till modifications he
made.
He advises those getting into no -
till to experiment and modify what
they have before spending a lot on
money on machinery. Each farm has
particular problems that have to be
solved. The Gowland farm runs from
clay -sand loam to sand and he had to
tailor something that would handle
the variety of conditions on the go.
"All equipment has to be tailored to
your needs. You're trying to do more
than one job with one tool."
Some farmers are frightened off
by the changes they need to make in
equipment but they shouldn't,
Gowland says. He does say that you
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Elevator 519-395-5959
Mill 519-395-5955
Res. 519-395-5550
AUGUST 1992 21