Slick New Way To Stop Soil Erosion Water Runoff

Slick New Way to stop soil erosion Water Runoff CULTIVATORS Cultivators 58C We think it s one of the biggest-ever breakthroughs for controlling costly water loss and soil erosion says Jack Anderson inventor-manufacturer of a new hydraulic-driven attachment for tillage tools that stops rain and snow melt from running down hills and slopes Called Water Check the yield-boosting device attaches to the rear of field and row crop cultivators chisel plows and disks It s equipped with shovels spaced 1 to 2 ft apart which move up and down 45 to 50 times per minute to form upwards of 12 000 miniature water-holding troughs on each acre A dam at each end of each trough prevents any water movement Each reservoir holds approximately 8 gals of water which pencils out to approximately 100 000 gals of water held and stored on each acre during rainfall or snowmelt The old adage that water runs downhill is no longer true We ve proven that a Water Check d field can handle several inches of rain in a downpour with virtually zero runoff even on steep slopes says Anderson president of Town and Country Research and Development headquartered near Marion N Dak We re conservatively estimating that Water Check will increase yields 15 to 20% because of the increased supply of crop-available water Anderson feels that his new invention U S and foreign patents pending is the first practical approach to an old concept Many water-retention devices have been introduced through the years such as Wobble Disks Tumblebugs Diamond Packers and other types of dikers But none really caught on They were either too costly or required too much maintenance or were too much of a hassle to operate and transport Not so with Water Check It sells for about one-fifth the cost of competing ma-chines and it s easy to operate install maintain and transport You just plug it into the tractor hydraulics put the lever forward and drive There are no electric solenoid valves no ground-driven wheels no chains sprockets gears springs or other high wear parts says Anderson of his computer-designed new invention We constructed a working model on our computer and worked out all of the bugs right on the screen ù before ever cutting a piece of iron Heart of the system is an all-hydraulic pulsator It controls the cylinders which in turn control the up and down action of the dam-building shovels One hydraulic pulsator can handle a number of cylinders For example on a 32-ft field cultivator made up of a 16 ft section and an 8 ft folding wing on each side you simply mount a Water Check gang on each wing and one behind the center cultivator section All three Water Check gangs are controlled by four cylinders two on the center gang and one on each wing which in turn are con trolled by the one pulsator mounted on the tractor Though separate the Water Check sections or gangs are synchronized automatically by the pulsator to form 10 000 to 12 000 reservoirs or troughs on every acre The number formed is adjustable to suit the operator s preference depending on topography severity of the slopes and other factors The Water Check s shovels without requiring an extra trip through the field shape and texture soil which has already been loosened by the tillage tool to which it s attached notes Anderson Consequently the dam-forming device itself re-quires very little extra horsepower to operate Thu can operate the tillage tool on which it s mounted at normal field speed Because of the continuous up and down action of its shovels and shanks the Water Check device self-cleans when operated in straw stalks or viny weeds If a shovel hits a rock it immediately lifts up to clear the obstruction Anderson points out Retail cost of the Water Check system is right at $1 000 for the hydraulic pulsator package plus $150 per ft of machine width For a 32 ft wide field cultivator for ex-ample the price would be right at $5 800 An optional control allows length of the individual troughs to be adjusted on the go to create more water-retention reservoirs on steep hills and fewer on gen

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