Farm Progress staff

If you still believe mechanical cultivation — either before planting or to get weeds — has its place, then check out these products editors discovered at fall farm shows. Several short-line companies have dedicated their efforts to coming up with what these companies believe are economical solutions to your tillage needs.

You will find entire cultivators for weed control among the new product offerings here. Two different companies offer cultivators. Strip-till users may find them most appealing, but they could fit into any system where you still want to use steel to assist your herbicide programs in weed control.

If you farm mostly level, heavier soils, your fields may be suited to mechanical weed control to help when tough, resistant weeds seem to be outracing herbicides toward the finish line.

You also will find replacement parts among the offerings in this grouping. Most of these are designed differently than the original parts that came on the tool, especially if you’re looking at field cultivator shovels.

While it’s not a tillage tool per se, one of the most exciting new products among this group is a tool Yetter will introduce to crimp cover crops in the row in no-till operations. If you want to plant green, here’s an alternative to herbicides for taking out cover crops, and an alternative to full-width crimping.

Yetter bases this new product on the same principle used in its popular Stalk Devastator machine that helps destruct cornstalks on corn heads. The company is making adjustments in the roller design so that it should be effective in crimping cover crops.