Sunday, April 5, 2009

New Plow

We have been waiting for the new rollover plow and it finally arrived! As you can see in the videos, it is called a rollover plow because you can roll it over at the end of each row so that all of the furrows slope in the same direction. Rollover plows are used mainly in Europe where the fields are smaller and fuel is more expensive. The plow cuts deeper than our old traditional moldboard one and it rolls the earth completely over. Now we can grow nitrogen fixing cover crops until they are very tall, allowing for greater soil fertility. Because the plow turns the earth over completely, we can plow just a short time before planting. Our old plow just upended the cover crops so we had to plow 3-4 weeks before planting to allow enough time for the cover crops to break down. Take a look at the video to see the plow in action.

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