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From the small village of Salford, in Ontario's Oxford County, comes a new tillage system for western Canadian farmers, offering a middle ground between conventional farming and no-till cropping.

These fluted coulters on the Salford RTS only cut a couple of inches into the ground, but help fracture the soil below, providing what’s known as “vertical tillage.” -- Lee Hart photo

The Salford RTS (Reduced Tillage Specialist) tool can be used to provide what's described as vertical tillage. Using wavy or fluted coulters, followed by half-inch-diameter harrow tines, it works through and fractures the top two to four inches of soil, but still leaves a good mulch or crop residue cover on the ground.

It was developed for use in corn and soybean fields in Ontario, Salford sales manager Jim Boak explains, but he figures it will have wide application for western grain and oilseed production. The Salford RTS is on display at the Agri-Trade show in Red Deer, Alta., this week.

"The idea is to still leave a good mulch cover on the soil, but the tillage action blackens a bit of the soil to improve germination," says Boak.

"The fluted coulter works into the soil to a depth of about two inches. It leaves nice loose soil in the top inch for seeding, with a firm seed bed below." It's actually the harrow tines that follow the coulters that do the most tillage.

Boak says the Salford RTS is a versatile tool that can be used for surface tillage, adapted to apply liquid or dry fertilizer and anhydrous ammonia and, when outfitted with an air kit, can even be used as an air seeding system.

The combination of the fluted coulters and the harrow tines helps to fracture the soil below the actual two inches that is being tilled, says Boak.

"It doesn't turn the soil over but it loosens the soil structure below to improve root penetration and also infiltration of moisture," he says. "We have many examples where we have pulled the Salford RTS through a wet area in a field one day and the next morning the area is dry. The tillage action makes it possible for farmers to get onto fields earlier, and just that bit of black soil on the surface improves crop germination."

The Salford RTS includes fluted coulters on seven-inch spacing, followed by a three-bar heavy duty harrow, which is followed by a spiral or rolling harrow which helps level the soil.

The machine comes in widths ranging from eight feet to 60 feet, and unlike many tillage systems where slower is better, it works best at field speeds of 10 to 12 miles per hour. The unit requires about 10 to 12 horsepower per foot of toolbar.

Salford has more than 180 dealers across North America, but is just now establishing dealers in Western Canada. KeyAg Ventures in Red Deer is the first dealer in Alberta. The 24-foot model, on display at Agri-Trade, retails for about $48,000.

-- Lee Hart is a field editor for Grainews in Calgary.