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Here’s our question of the week.

Question: I'm going to be running a Gladiator over some acres this fall putting on my P&K. Do you run strip fresheners in the spring?

A: We run a triple coulter Soil Warrior in the fall and NO strip freshener in the spring. It leaves a beautiful, mellow, stale strip to plant into!

          - Brian Ryberg, Buffalo Lake, Minn.

A: Sometimes we apply K in the fall. But it is so dry this year we will wait for rain or do it in the spring. Why waste fuel? Our Soil Warrior makes a great seedbed and even if it is wet it does not smear. There’s no stalk chopping, and it works great on 250 BPA corn.

         - Roger Engstrom, Ames, Iowa

A: We run a Redball shank type machine in the fall in soybean ground for next year’s corn. We have never used a strip freshener and have no plans to start using one.

We have prefect conditions for planting (moist, but not too firm). We did have a neighbor try a strip freshener for 2 years but he quit because the strip would dry out before he could get it planted, or he was removing so much of the strip to plant into moisture that it looked more like a furrow than a strip.

If you plan to plant directly into the strip I suggest investing in a great set of row cleaners. And I might suggest a set that you can adjust from the cab. Once you have cab adjustments you will wonder how you got by without it.

          - Jon Olson, Minn. 

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