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Captain
America: A small, experimental roller
built by technicians at the USDA-ARS National Soil
Dynamics Laboratory in Auburn, Ala. (Photo courtesy
of Randy L. Raper, USDA-ARS-NSDL.) |
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Posted May 12, 2005: One of the great things
about developing mechanical kill methods for reduced-input no-till
systems is that the crimper/roller implements are relatively
simple and inexpensive to build.
The Rodale Institute's No-Till + Project will build and distribute
ten rollers to be used by farmers and researchers in California,
North Dakota, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, Virginia
and Mississippi. But there are already farmers and researchers
working with rollers—based on our design or on designs
of their own—in other areas.
In the interest of spreading the word about low-input no-till,
we've created a photo gallery of crimper/rollers.
Do you have a roller you'd like to showcase? Send your pics
digitally to
or ,
or by regular mail to Laura Sayre, The New Farm, 611 Siegfriedale
Rd., Kutztown, PA 19530.
Enjoy!
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Winslow winner:
A three-roller set-up from Ernest Winslow in Scotland
Neck, NC. |
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Harvest
Gold >>>:
The Rodale Institute's cover crop crimper/roller,
designed and built in late 2002 by TRI farm manager Jeff
Moyer and neighboring farmer John Brubaker, with the assistance
of a NE SARE grant. |
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The Crimp-o-matic: John Hayden of The
Farm Between in Jeffersonville, VT, built this simple,
hand-and-foot powered crimper tool by attaching a piece
of manure spreader bed chain (angle iron would also
work, he suggests) to a board and then threading lengths
of baling twine to each end. By taking a length of twine
in each hand and stepping on the board every eight inches
or so, Hayden says, you can flatten the cover crop in
the same way that people make crop circles. Hayden and
his farm team used the tool in their greenhouse and
then planted tomatoes into the mulch.
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Orange
Crush >>>: Researchers at Penn
State University constructed this roller in early 2005
and will be testing it out this season. |
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The Alabama slammer: Alabama roller built
by Dr. Wayne Reeves of USDA-ARS.
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Big Blue: Steve and Tony Polter of Polter's
Berry Farm in Fremont, Ohio, built this blue roller based
on the Rodale Institute's design. They'll be using it
for no-till pumpkins and other crops. |
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Black
magic >>>: Michigan State University
extension specialist Dale Mutch had this roller built
with the help of a MSU Project GREEEN grant, following
the basic design of the Rodale Institute's roller. The
team had good results with it for organic soybeans in
2004 and will be testing it again this season.
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Fresh
cut >>>:
A knife roller in use on the farm of Erny Schlindwein,
president of the Paraguayan No-till Farmers Association.
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Chop-n-go: Steve Groff of Cedar Meadow Farm
in Pennsylvania uses a rolling stalk chopper to knock
down residue.
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Front runner: Georgia farmer Lamar Black
built this front-mounted roller from his own design.
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The
Green Berea:>>> At Berea College
in Kentucky, Prof. Sean Clark and his team have been rolling
rye cover crops for corn with a Bessler rolling stalk
chopper. Clark says the system has worked well both with
and without mimimal herbicide applications. |
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