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Ryan Schmid and Mike Bredeson know that sustainable farming often hinges on practical, affordable tools. That’s why they led a recent project to address the high cost of roller-crimpers.
Roller-crimpers are used for terminating cover crops without tillage or herbicides, but commercial models can cost over $30,000, a price tag too high for many farmers.
The team in South Dakota set out to change that.
Ryan Schmid and Mike Bredeson collaborated with farmers in South Dakota to create a do-it-yourself guide and videos for repurposing a disc into a low-cost roller crimper.
With support from a $39,996 North Central Region Sustainable Research and Education (NCR-SARE) partnership grant, the team at the Ecdysis Foundation in Brandt, South Dakota, repurposed old tillage equipment to build a fully functional roller-crimper for just under $6,000.
They didn’t stop there. To ensure others could replicate the design, they created a detailed construction guide and a series of how-to videos, making the innovation accessible to farmers and local machine shops across the region.
Field testing with six South Dakota farmers over two growing seasons confirmed the tool’s effectiveness and durability, with only minor tweaks needed. In 2022-2023, 161 acres of cereal rye cover crops were terminated using their manufactured roller-crimper.
"Farmers regularly rely on disturbances like tillage or herbicides to terminate cover. Roller-crimping is a soil health-conscious alternative termination method of popular cover crops,” Schmid said.
A disc plow was converted to a cover crop roller-crimper by researchers at the Ecdysis Foundation.
Cereal rye is the most popular winter-hardy cover crop that growers use in the region. It requires spring termination before a cash crop starts to grow. But without many roller-crimpers available in the region and with the cost of new machines high, farmers face hurdles in adopting the practice of growing cover crops, Schmid said.
With the DIY machine, farmers began to consider crimping as a feasible alternative to tillage and herbicides for cover crop termination, he said.
Plans and part dimensions for a DIY roller-crimper build are available here.
The team also developed a six-part video series on building a custom roller-crimper machine.
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