Cover Crop Roller

[emetzger]

Hey guys, I'm here to sell something. Check it out @ www.covercroproller.com

The short story is I built a 6' roller this summer and used it with my planter while doing corn. I'm excited about using it more and hope to sell some. I'm working on building some 6' units along with 8' and 10.5'.

With this unit my goal on the farm is to build my soil. I'm in middle Tennessee, near Ashland city, so my soil is rocky and not the best. I hope to one day use less fertilizer and herbicide and see something better come out of it. This may be a little extreme for a wildlife farmer but I'm going to take a swing at it and see what happens.

Thanks for looking,
Erik

 

[kabic]

Looks like a plug, do you fill it with water?

 

[yoderjac]

Erik,

I know you've been working on designs for a while. Looking very nice. Wish I could afford one.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[emetzger]

Yes you can fill it with water to make it heavier. Jack, thanks for remembering me.
e

 

[MoBuckChaser]

You join today just to pimp your product..........Sweet

 

[Bill]

Hasn't gone unnoticed. Bueller was on it about 10 seconds after it went up.
Decided to let it ride. But I'm moving it the for sale section.

 

[Bill]

Don't blame Bueller.
Erik obviously didnt read the rules. But I gave him "1" pass.

 

[emetzger]

Sorry for the wrong thread, I will move it over there.
e

 

[Bill]

Sorry for the wrong thread, I will move it over there.
e

Gotcha covered. I moved it.

 

[bueller]

I saw the post and after reading the first line of "Hey guys, I'm here to sell something" from a new member I immediately thought WTH, delete. However I recognized the username from the old site, and not as someone pimping products that I for one would've been quick to call him out on for doing so over there. I thought he contributed but honestly don't remember for sure.

Point being, I'm all for giving someone the benefit of the doubt and hope Erik is here to contribute to the forum more than he is here to sell products.

 

[yoderjac]

I saw the post and after reading the first line of "Hey guys, I'm here to sell something" from a new member I immediately thought WTH, delete. However I recognized the username from the old site, and not as someone pimping products that I for one would've been quick to call him out on for doing so over there. I thought he contributed but honestly don't remember for sure.

Point being, I'm all for giving someone the benefit of the doubt and hope Erik is here to contribute to the forum more than he is here to sell products.

Didn't realize you recognized him. My posts were only to distinguish him from the marketer types we all want to avoid. Glad this was sorted out.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[bueller]

Didn't realize you recognized him. My posts were only to distinguish him from the marketer types we all want to avoid. Glad this was sorted out.

Thanks,

Jack

I like to think I've got a pretty good memory. Although if you ask my wife she will tell you it's quite selective;):D.

 

[Bill]

Erik,
Help me understand how the roller terminates a cover crop so that no herbicide is needed.
I've been rolling and drilling for a few years now but always spray first. I could see it working with rye or another cover crop with a straw like stem because it is crimped upon rolling.

Having a hard time seeing it terminating a clover enough for corn to grow.

 

[emetzger]

Bill,
At the flower stage crimson can be terminated. Others like whites would need to be spayed. There is a lot of info on the web about benefits of using a crop roller. Here is one.
http://extension.psu.edu/pests/weeds/cover-crop-rollers-for-northeastern-grain-production

Thanks,
Erik

 

[Doohop65]

My wife and I both work in agriculture with much of her time spent on cover crops(she works for usda). The rollers are interesting and finding some traction with production farmers but they do have there limitations.

Most uses I have seen are terminating annuals with little to no success on perennials. While I am not saying it can't work I would probably spray a perennial first.

We are learning more and more about soil health and I truly think there is something to tilling less. rolling may be a cheaper and ultimately more soil healthy alternative to deep tilling. As my wife says, keeping a growing crop on the soil is a win/win situation.

 

[tooln]

Wouldn't a cultipacker do the same thing?

 

[Doohop65]

Sure would if its heavy enough. We use winter rye in our garden and I killed it with a hillbilly method, pulled an oak log with my tractor. Worked fairly well.

Truth be told the crimp roller listed is pretty cool. I have seen a similar one used in a farm I work with. It did a great job with almost complete kill. I do think it kills the crop slightly better than something like a cultipactor.

With that being said I would probably not buy one over cheaper/used implements that will get the job done. Like I have seen said here before, we are feeding deer not farming.

 

[yoderjac]

Commercial no-till farmers have two methods I'm familiar with. One is to use a cultipacker with a sprayer attached. In one pass they roll down the WR cover crop and spray it to kill it. The other is a crimper. It crimps the rye and terminates it. Things like clover in a cover crop mix probably don't get terminated with either method. The freshly rolled rye can keep gly from contacting clover underneath. Keep in mind most of these farmers are planting RR beans or corn. Corn will shade out the clover and typically clover won't hurt corn. I've seen setups where clover was intentionally established as a weed barrier for non-RR corn. The no-till drill had a sprayer on it with narrow tips over each row. It would set back the clover in each planting row long enough for the corn to germinate and get above it. The clover would then become the weed barrier for the non- RR corn. For RR beans, I'm guessing the first post germination pass with the sprayer would terminate the crimson. The ideas for the commercial no-till farmers is reducing input cost. One less pass with Gly on a large field can make a difference.

Thanks,

jack

 

[emetzger]

Thanks for all the discussion on this topic. Cover crops like grains, crimson clover and vetch are all annuals and will die by themselves eventually. In order to plant into them early you have to kill them early.

To kill them you have to spray them or cut or crimp them when they begin to flower. The reason for the crimper is it crimps the cover crop early so one can plant before the cover crop expires and without herbicide.

Yes this is overkill for most deer hunters but for a organic farmer or someone who doesn't want to use herbicide it is the answer.

Erik

 

[MoBuckChaser]

You never want to crimp early if you don't have to. You run the risk of cover crop regrowth if you do. For Rye you want to hit it around pollination time. But for guys in the upper midwest, we don't have the amount of growing degree days we need to make it work. Since WR typically heads out in june here, and we need to be planting in may, time does not allow us the use of a crimper. So most of us plant a self terminating cover crop, or spray to terminate the cover cover crop and plant next spring, avoiding the need for a crimper.