The second rotation is a 3-year rotation of a spring grain followed by a legume followed by direct seeded winter wheat. In the fall a disc is used for tillage after the spring grain which leaves most all of the residue on top of the soil. The disc also leaves the surface quite level, which we find to be very critical when using the 5000 air drill. In the spring after an application of Roundup and Pursuit we will harrow using a 10 bar flex harrow to break up the straw and then seed the legumes using the 5000 air drill. Sometimes we will follow the drill with another harrowing to smooth the ground to aid in the harvest of the legumes.
Winter wheat is direct seeded following the legumes.
We use the 5000 air drill that is equipped with double shoot seed boots to seed and fertilize in one pass. Following the winter wheat we will use a disc-ripper for the fall tillage. The disc-ripper is adjusted to leave most of the residue on the surface and with the ripper teeth running deep enough to shatter any hard pan that may be present to help with water infiltration and root penetration. We have attempted to eliminate the tillage operations entirely but without much success. This is mostly due to the large amounts of residue to contend with especially following the winter wheat.