"It reduces the number of trips needed to plant a crop which saves fuel, prevents soil erosion, and breaks up soil compaction in the row area. It also loosens up the root zone which results in better yields," says Dick Harris, Harris Co. Inc., Mineral, Va., who recently sent FARM SHOW photos of a one-pass row crop tillage machine that he has been testing.

The machine uses deep ripper shanks that mount in front of planter row units. So far, he has used a 2-row prototype to plant corn. "We need to test this machine in many different crops, especially those that respond to subsoiling, such as cotton," says Harris.

Wide tires -- two per row -- support the machine. A deep ripper shank digs down into the soil under the rear half of the front tire. As the machine is pulled over the field, the tire pushes over and holds crop material and also holds the soil down as the shank passes through it. The tire prevents the soil from flying upward, sometimes in big chunks, as the shank is pulled through the soil.

"Soil flows out from behind the tire like a heaved-up blanket. This leaves soil in the shank area broken up as deep as the shank is set, yet the top area of the soil where the seed will be planted is kept mostly intact and in much better condition to plant in," says Harris. "It works kind of like no-till, yet the soil is broken up directly under each row down deep, which is something that no-till doesn't do."

Harris says he hopes to test the machine in many different crops, especially those that respond to subsoiling such as cotton. "One time we used the machine in a rainfall runoff test, comparing it to conventional tillage and no-till. Sediment loss for this machine was 85 percent less than conventional tillage and 51 percent less than no-till," he notes.