Is Strip Till Catching on Near You?

Geographically speaking, where is most of the strip-till production of sugarbeets presently occurring? Safe to say, it’s in the western states: Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana and Idaho.

The practice appears most widespread in western Nebraska. Jerry Darnell, Scottsbluff-based agronomy manager for Western Sugar Cooperative, says about half (49%) of this year’s Nebraska sugarbeet acreage is under a strip-till system. In Colorado, it’s about 30%. (Another 31% of Nebraska’s acres and 33% of Colorado’s are classified as “minimum-till” beets.) “In Nebraska, I think we’re going to be pushing 90% strip till in the future,” Darnell predicts.

What’s driving this trend? Darnell says there are several reasons: less tillage equating to better conservation of soil moisture; fuel savings and less equipment wear due to fewer passes through the field; being able to apply fertilizer with the strip-till pass (and using less phosphate); and the wind erosion protection provided by the between-row crop residue.

The introduction of Roundup Ready® sugarbeets has eased the conversion to strip till, Darnell says, as has the expanded presence of RTK guidance systems. “You can come in, do your strip tillage — and know the planter will follow those exact same tracks,” he points out.

Most beets in Western Sugar’s Nebraska and Colorado districts are planted in 30-inch rows, while 22-inch rows are predominant in Wyoming and Montana. That’s a major reason why only about 2% of beet acreage in the Lovell and Billings factory districts is under strip till this year.

“Strip-till equipment manufacturers are still developing the machinery for 22-inch rows so it doesn’t clog,” Darnell notes. “With 30-inch rows, trash flows through nicely; but there’s still refinement needed for 22s.”

Some growers using gravity (furrow) irrigation are less likely to travel the strip-till route since they may need to pre-irrigate their beet crop. For instance, in the Lovell, Wyo., district, growers often don’t get enough spring rainfall, so then must “irrigate up” their beets, Darnell notes. That’s typically not the case in Nebraska, however.

Russ Fullmer, agricultural manager for Sidney Sugars, Inc., says there are about 2,500 beet acres strip tilled “in one form or another” this year in his eastern Montana/ northwestern North Dakota region. While the practice started on center-pivot fields, it’s beginning to catch on in furrow-irrigated ground, he notes. As in the Lovell area, “if growers have to ‘irrigate up’ in the spring, the trash would cause a problem,” Fullmer says. Scientists at the USDA-ARS Northern Plains Agricultural Research Lab at Sidney have established studies to address that issue.

Will strip-till acreage expand in the Sidney district in future years? Fullmer certainly believes so. “Growers are trying many different forms of strip tillage within the different growing areas,” he reports. “I guess ‘the cream will rise to the top’ with these experiments.”

Further west, Amalgamated Sugar Company agriculturist Robert Downard reports about 6,000 acres under strip till this year in the Twin Falls and Mini-Cassia districts. It’s mainly being used on fields containing sandy or silt loam soils with high lime or high salts; also in locales where field slope can trigger excessive runoff. “The primary reason most growers implement this practice is for erosion [control] — wind or water. Cost savings are second,” Downard relates. A cost-share program offered through the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service has also helped attract some strip-till beet acres.

As in other regions, Roundup Ready beets fit very well with strip till in eastern and south central Idaho. “It is a good partnership,” Downard affirms, “because in some areas where erosion was a constant battle, this practice (strip till + Roundup for weed control) has provided some relief.” The strip-till pass is typically performed in the spring in his area, he adds.

Additional research needs? Downard says fertilizer rates and timing rank toward the top. “We [also] need research on the total amount of fertilizer needed, insect control and any shift in weed species that may occur,” he says. In addition, “we may need to look at rodent control, because we are not destroying their homes like we did with full tillage.” The Amalgamated agriculturist foresees a slower pace of strip-till adoption until some of the residue management issues are resolved. “However, the ones who have [already tried strip till] are positive about it and are moving forward.”

There are about 800 acres of strip-till beets planted this year in the Treasure Valley of western Idaho/eastern Oregon, says Clark Millard, agricultural manager for Amalgamated Sugar’s Nampa factory district. He lists several valuable benefits:

“First is the ability to plant beets in very sandy fields and greatly reduce the risk of losing or replanting them due to spring winds. Another reason has to do with the amount of passes across the field and the expense involved in all of them.” The standard procedure on a Treasure Valley wheat field going into sugarbeets, Millard explains, “would likely be to chop or bale the straw, disk, irrigate to sprout the wheat that is on the ground, plow, roller harrow once or twice, fall bed, work the beds in the spring, then plant.” That compares to a strip-till regimen of simply baling the straw, and then strip tilling and planting in either one or two passes in the spring. “Strip tillage is allowing growers to have more time during the busy spring season to do other things that need to be done, as well as saving considerable money per acre,” Millard observes.

The availability of Roundup Ready sugarbeets has helped make strip tillage “a workable program in our area,” Millard continues. The ability to reliably control weeds across a wider range of growth stages gives a grower more flexibility, he notes. While it’s obviously important to also apply Roundup in a timely manner, timing was even more critical with the conventionals. “A pre-emergence application of Roundup has always been possible to control overwintering and early germinating weeds,” Millard says, “but has often been hard to apply in a timely manner due to windy, rainy spring weather — and then becoming impossible because too many sugarbeets had emerged. Later-germinating weeds could develop beneath the crop residue left from the strip-tillage operation until they are big enough to be difficult to control with our traditional herbicides.”

This past year, some Treasure Valley producers conducted their strip-till pass in the fall; others in the spring. “Both worked fine,” Millard reports. “Since the practice is new in our area, the strip tillage was custom done, and the timing determined by equipment availability. If I were to guess, I think that some of the heavier soils will be strip tilled in the fall to allow the seedbed time to settle over winter, while some of the lighter soils will be spring strip tilled. Timing also depends on how one-pass planting and tilling catches on. If it does, that will obviously necessitate spring tillage.”

The Amalgamated ag manager says strip-till growers in his area still face a sizable learning curve. “Fertilizer placement and rate is one that I feel is very important,” he states. “How much can we reduce phosphate rates by banding it underneath the seed? How much fertilizer can we place beneath the seed, and how close to it without hindering germination? Are multiple fertilizer application depths a good thing, a bad thing — or does it matter?

“How does strip tillage influence pre-emergence irrigation needs? How best should we size prior crop residue — especially following corn? How does strip tillage contribute to diseases such as rhizoctonia by leaving more crop residue on the soil surface? How about the incidence of damaging insects such as cutworm? How can we make strip tillage work under surface irrigation?”

Millard says those who have tried strip-till beets are continuing to experiment, updating and refining their systems. “With most of our strip-tillage experience being positive — and [given] the opportunities strip tillage presents to establish a crop with fewer environmental interferences (such as wind damage), as well as the obvious savings due to reducing the number of passes across a field — I believe the practice will catch on with more growers,” he affirms.

Strip till has not yet generated such levels of interest in other North American sugarbeet areas.

In southern Alberta, very few Lantic, Inc. (formerly Rogers Sugar), growers are currently using a strip-till production system — although the practice has been studied for several years by Lantic, Inc., agronomists (and featured in the April/May 2009 issue of The Sugarbeet Grower).

Should strip till begin to catch on in Alberta, Lantic research agronomist Bryan Avison expects it will mainly be a fall tillage pass — as is already the case with most beet seedbed preparation in the province. “Some of the same fall land preparation reasons would apply to strip tillage as [to] conventional tillage,” he states — such as conserving spring soil moisture for improved germination and emergence; a fall application of high nitrogen and phosphorus rates prior to freeze-up will reduce the risk of seed injury; a spring application of N and P in a dual band can limit P availability; fertilizer prices are generally lower in the fall; and finally, a fall strip-till pass reduces spring workloads, allowing the grower to focus on planting.

For Alberta growers who may be considering going to a strip-till system for sugarbeets, Avison suggests they pay special attention to previous-crop residue management (most Alberta beets are in 22-inch rows) and proper nutrient placement. Also, “sub-inch RTK guidance with auto steer is critical,” he says. “In the absence of an electronic guidance system, really good physical guide marks are necessary.”

Though university research has been — and is being — conducted, commercial strip-till beet fields are still a rarity in the Upper Midwest as well. Glenn Augustine, vice president-agriculture for Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative, says he’s not aware of any strip-tilled fields this year in SMBSC’s operations area; nor does he foresee much interest among the co-op’s growers in the near future. “[Our] heavy soils and high amount of corn residue are challenges to strip till,” Augustine remarks. “A large portion of our beet crop follows corn.”

The interest level is not much higher in the Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative area. “We have one grower who dabbles in no till, but [we] don’t seem to have any using strip till on sugarbeets,” says Tom Knudsen, vice president-agriculture for the Wahpeton, N.D.-based cooperative. “I would think Roundup Ready sugarbeets would invite more to the table eventually; but so far, conventional tillage seems to be overwhelmingly popular here.” Moisture conservation is not a concern in the Minn-Dak area — much of which was very wet last fall and has received plenty (and in some locales, excessive) rainfall again this season.

To the north, of the 446,000 acres planted by American Crystal Sugar growers this year, only about 500 were strip tilled. There would have been more had last fall not been so wet, says general agronomist Allan Cattanach.

As in the Minn-Dak and Southern Minn areas, Crystal growers typically have adequate spring soil moisture; so that’s not a reason for going to strip till. The benefits more likely to pique their interest, Cattanach says, are fuel savings, banding to reduce application rates of P and K, residue management and wind protection for seedlings, the single-pass tillage — and the potential to participate in a cost-share program through USDA-NRCS.

Since input costs will be less, Cattanach doesn’t believe superior yields are a criterion for strip-till beets to start catching on in the Crystal region (though they need to be at least equal to conventional yields). “Soil temperatures in the seed zone will be important, i.e., will soils and seedbeds be cooler and slow germination and emergence?” he queries. Another question relates to timing of tillage and fertilizer, i.e., can growers perform the strip-till pass right after small grains harvest and apply nitrogen fertilizer without losing any N before it becomes available to the next year’s beet crop? (This timing best fits Crystal growers’ fall workload.)

American Crystal has dataloggers in two 2009 northern Red River Valley fields, comparing strip-till beets with adjacent conventional-till ones. Residue measurements, wind data, moisture readings and stand counts are among the parameters being compared, along with final beet yield and quality.

About a half dozen Michigan growers are experimenting, to one degree or another, with strip-till sugarbeets this year, according to Corey Guza, Michigan Sugar Company agronomist. “It is not specific to any area of the growing region,” he reports. “The growers’ objectives are to reduce cost and erosion by reducing tillage. Potential savings could also [be realized through] reduced fertilizer cost by applying K in the strip in the fall.”

Michigan’s Sugarbeet Advancement project is conducting replicated field-scale trials on strip-till sugarbeets for the first time this year. All of the tillage/strips were established in the fall into soybean stubble, notes trial coordinator Steve Poindexter.

One sugarbeet area where the chances of strip till catching on are slim to none is the Imperial Valley of southern California. “With (gravity) irrigation on fields with little slope, we need to have our beds shaped to carry the water to the bottom of some long fields,” says Ron Tharp, agricultural manager for Spreckels Sugar, Brawley. “We also have to ‘irrigate up’ to two times to get good emergence with the heat at planting time.” Finally, since beets typically follow a variety of other row crops in Imperial Valley rotations, “we have to work up the fields to get the corrugates leveled out,” Tharp points out. — Don Lilleboe