Can I Make Strip-Till Work with a 6-Row Rig & 16-Row Planter?

Brady Jones asked the following question in the Strip-Till Farmer Email Discussion Group: “I have a 6-row strip-tiller with RTK. Would I be able to strip 6 rows and plant with a 16-row planter? Or is that too difficult/impossible?”

As always, Strip-Till Nation was ready to help. Here are some of the top responses to Brady’s question.

“I’ve been strip-tilling with a 12-row bar and planting with a 16-row planter,” says Wisconsin strip-tiller Mike Ruff. “RTK makes it work great.”

“We strip 8 and plant 12,” says Glenwood, Minn., strip-tiller Matt Laubach. “We use a TerraStar C, which is almost as accurate as RTK. We put the strip-till on a CAT track tractor to keep it from drifting and it’s mounted. We plant with a 2wd John Deere and use a mounted planter. On some of our steepest hills, it will slide a little. Overall, it works really well. We did have a row crop 4wd on the strip-tiller originally. We had a lot of issues with that.”

“It depends on how particular you are and how much headache it will cause if it is off,” says Caldwell, Idaho, strip-tiller Kenton Doty. “I wouldn’t attempt it with anything other than half the width of whatever your standard is — 6 on 12 or 8 on 16, etc. Row spacing may also be a factor, as I’m working on a 22-inch with gravity irrigation and cultivating as standard practices in my operation. By going other spacing such as 6 on 16, that gives you more places for guess row to be off which I have a low tolerance for. All my experience has been with John Deere RTK.”

“For the most part, you’ll be fine,” says Lake Wilson, Minn., strip-tiller Bryan Biegler. “The biggest issue will be how you work the odd rows on your headlands or point row. Either you’ll have extra strip rows or you’ll have to overlap some, which isn’t a big deal.”

What do you think? Click here to join the discussion and sign up for the free Strip-Till Farmer Email Discussion group.