Do you use some form of auto steer? To get the most benefit you should some sort of system so you plant dead on the strip, but their are lots of farmers who don't use auto guide to plant. How big of a bar do you want? How many acres do you want to cover? There are several bars that are good but the deal breaker will be the dealer that backs you.
The Case 5310 bar is a soild machine but when you hook that commodity cart to it and then the ammonia tank you really get stretched out. John Deere is going to have the same problem, the only strike against these two is the fact that the row units are not free floating. Blue jet looks to have a good system with the fertilizer tank mounted above but here again they don't have free floating row units. Brillion has an awsome looking bar!! I think you could lay strips in a blacktop road with that one. Progressive has free floating row units,but we were cautioned that the strength COULD be questionable. Wil-Rich showed off a new toolbar at the farm progress show today,it has a fargo air tank mounted above and you could put any bodies row unit on it,they will be bringing their own to the market soon. Dawn has a row unit that is very different,I talked with them this past winter,they are out side of the box but not in a bad way,we only ruled them out because they could not put down ammonia at that time. We settled on a Bauer Built bar with Redball row units,and a Montag box above the bar where the seed tank normaly goes. I went to the show today to see it on display at the bauer built lot. It still needes the raven cold flow towers put on it and the dry hoses, but it is the first of its kind and the vision of all to follow.
There are studies online that show the benefits of striptill, there is also a list of 10 things not to do in striptill. We hope to compile results next winter and build a data base for our customers as the years go by. I picked up information today to read through and hope to attend some conferances next year. For any more info feel free to get in touch with me directly,its an ongoing learning experiance. We have a great dealer and a great product rep to draw support from,we are looking forward to getting into the field this fall!