subject: Strip-Tillage - Technology to Make Agriculture More Profitable [print this page] Strip-Tillage - Technology to Make Agriculture More Profitable
Farmers all over the world are worried for reducing crop output per mtr of land. Almost all the nations are emphasizing to increase their agriculture produce. Govts. support the agriculture industry in all the possible ways to ensure the expected outcomes. Being encouraged with this support, agriculture industry is innovating new tools to improve the quality and quantity of crop. Invention of Striped-Till technique is the result of collective efforts and commitment of agriculture industry and govt.
Striped-till is conservation system that uses minimum tillage. It combines soil warming and drying benefits of conventional type tillage with no-till soil-protecting advantages by disturbing only the seed row part of land. To perform this striped-tillage, we need special equipments which could make multiple trips in the desired manner. Each strip-tilled row is usually eight to ten inches wide. Another excellent benefit of striped-tilling is that with this farmers can apply fertilizer and chemicals simultaneously at the time of tilling itself.
Yields are reported higher in striped-tilled farms than no-tilled farms. For example, in a low phosphorus farm site, yield was measured 43.5 bu/a in the striped-tilled portion while it was just 41.5 bu/a in no-tilled part (Randall et al., 2001).
Strip till warms the farm's soil and creates aerobic condition for better seedbed. Strip-tilling makes the soil nutrients better adaptable according to plant's needs giving protective ground coverage of untilled soil between two rows. The amount of erosion in striped-tillage is found considerably less in comparison to erosion in conventionally tilled farm land. When liquid fertilizer is applied, it directly reaches in tilled rows where seed is planted. It reduces the needed amount of fertilizer improving the proximity of fertilizer to roots zone. If compared with conventional tillage method, strip tillage saves time and money both. Strip tillage reduces the numbers of trips in a field and thus reduces carbon prints generated by fuel burning. It can be said that striped-tillage makes the farming environmental friendly.
The benefits of striped-tillage are being experienced worldwide; therefore, more and more farmers are switching over to leaving conventional no- till method. Sensing the fast growing requirement of strip-tilling machinery numerous manufacturers offer wide range of such equipments but the ultimate gain depends upon the right selection of strip-tillage equipment. Brand value; market reputation; company's exposure to agriculture requirements; after sales support and quality certification are few major aspects that need special attention, while comparing the options.
