By NANCY LYBARGER
Indiana Correspondent

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — Denny Bell and the crew at Soil-Max will unveil the new Gold Digger Stealth ZD at the 2011 National Farm Machinery Show (NFMS). Bell said the new pull type plow is a “breakthrough in how to make the lift easier.”
Soil-Max offers Midwest ag producers the easier, permanent answer to higher yields: field drainage. Bell said usually he tells potential clients the payback on the plow’s purchase price is two years, if he calculates 25 bushel-an-acre corn selling at $5 a bushel. However, with the wet spring throughout the Great Lakes region in 2010, he said the plow would have paid for itself in only one year.

Paying for the installation of field tile by a contractor will increase that payback a number of years.

Bell developed the design of the Gold Digger tile installation plow and started Soil-Max in 1997. The company offers two models: the Gold Pro three-point and the pull type. The plows are manufactured in Brazil, Ind.

Bell said the new model will also be offered in the three-point and pull type. The Stealth ZD offers the advantage of Zero Deflection (ZD), Bell said.
Where most pull types and three-point plows lift only about two feet of soil, the new plow will lift up to five feet of soil, “so it ends up taking the pressure off and pulls better. With the ZD, the angle of the plow doesn’t deflect from grade at all,” he said.

The deflection problem has caused some plows to smash tile in the back when the operator tries to pivot, Bell said. He said he got the idea for the ZD from a dealer who had purchased a different brand plow that was crushing tile.
By changing the distance where the tile exits the machinery, Bell said the problem should be eliminated. It is so innovative, he’s filing a patent-pending application for the concept.

What has separated the Gold Digger all along from its competitors, according to Bell, is the Intellislope. His is the only tile plow with its own control system that eliminates manual grade calculations. That saves time and effort, and limits mistakes.

Each Gold Digger plow comes with tech support, Bell said. Each comes with on-site installation by a company technician, along with a video to explain operations in detail and toll-free live tech support if the client needs additional assistance.

Bell said there are basically three reasons ag producers don’t buy a tile plow:
They feel they are not qualified to do the installation.

•They are concerned their tractor might not have the power to pull the tile plow.

•They don’t think they have time to do the installation on their own.

To answer those concerns, Bell said his company will offer to show clients how to operate the tractor and install the field tile. Most tractors, he said, will pull the plow with no problems. It was designed to be light enough not to bog down a modern tractor.

Bell estimates an individual can install about an acre’s worth of tile in about 25 minutes, totaling 20 acres a day.

He said his sales were triple last year what they had been the year before. Most of his equipment is being used in nine major drainage states, with a “big chunk of his sales going to Minnesota and the Dakotas.”

The need for tiling fields follows the normal rainfall patterns in the Great Lakes Basin, he said.
More information on the Gold Digger and Intellislope is available at the Soil-Max website at www.soilmax.com