Under the Hill Farms

About our Farm

Trimming Tillage Passes Produces Soil and Fuel-Saving Benefits 

The experience of watching gusty spring winds carry valuable topsoil off freshly planted potato fields is one that Chad Berry endured for years. 

“As a farmer, I don’t ever want to see my soil blow away,” Berry says. “We have such 4-5-week window from planting date to emergence date, and our soils are very exposed to the elements and erosion.” 

But the third-generation owner of Under the Hill Farms sees the 12,000-acre operation’s application of sustainable practices turn wind erosion into a rare sight instead of a regular one.

The Glenboro, Manitoba-based farm has a 25-year history of no-tilling most of its grain crops, and in 2019, Berry began adapting some of the same soil health principles into the operation’s field preparation for potatoes. 

The ongoing transition has included a dramatic reduction in tillage, going from multiple trips through the field to prepare soils and create seedbeds to a single-deep tillage pass ahead of potato planting. 

“We had three goals in moving into a single-tillage pass for potatoes; reduce soil erosion, improve water infiltration and be more efficient with fuel,” Berry says of the transition. “After three years of field trials, we’ve seen improvements in each of those areas.”

Transitional Tillage 

The traditional tillage cycle for potatoes started with a low-disturbance ripper pass in fall, then a deep-tillage pass in spring to loosen the soil and apply fertilizer. They made one more deep-tillage or power harrow pass before planting.

While the system wasn’t having a detrimental effect on potato yields, the consequences were increasingly visible in fields with light, sandy soils. Those areas were most susceptible to wind erosion and where Berry wanted to cut back on tillage passes and limit the damage to soil structure. 

Ongoing trials involve a fall pass with a narrow-shank Case IH Ecolo-Til in-line ripper. Potatoes are planted directly into the remaining wheat or canola stubble in spring.

“Ideally, we want to leave that previous crop’s stubble standing as long as possible in the field to hold the soil together,” Berry says. “In the past, we’d find a fine layer of silt at the bottom of a valley or a hill, which was that top layer of soil that had runoff. 

“Those areas were traditionally wetter and harder to control diseases in. We don’t see that silting in the fields anymore with the one-pass system. We’re still leaving some of that stubble standing and reducing the erosion potential while we’re waiting for our potatoes to grow.”

Growing Potential

So far, they’ve successfully planted into wheat and canola stubble, and aside from seeing potatoes emerge a day later than with conventional tillage practices, Berry says the one-pass system has not negatively impacted yields. 

The operation has two new 12-row Spudnik planters for 2022, equipped with a hiller option in the back and ripper in front, which Under the Hill helped design for the one-pass system. Precision ag tools also enhance value, with GPS guidance, swath control, and sonar depth control technology part of their planter setup.

“Our next steps are to expand the one-pass system onto more soil types, and we’d like to be able to band phosphate and potash during fall tillage to improve the consistency and availability of those nutrients,” Berry says. “We then want to set up our planter to apply nitrogen and reduce leaching and evaporation.”

The farm is conducting 2-year erosion control trials with Province Manitoba and Simplot Canada to assess the yield impact of its one-pass system vs. full tillage. Anecdotally, Berry says they’ve seen less erosion and better water infiltration, but he hopes to quantify more soil health benefits. 

One definable return on the farm’s tillage transition so far has been in fuel costs. “We’ve been able to reduce fuel consumption by 2-3 gallons per acre,” Berry says. “That can be significant, and so far, we like the sustainable path we’re on.”