Dealers 
Sales portal What Is Deep Tillage Equipment?
Deep tillage equipment is a primary tillage tool, such as a shanked chisel plow, that can work deeper than a disc or vertical tillage tool. It loosens and lifts the soil without turning it over, so a compaction layer near the working depth fractures and most of the residue stays on top.
Why it matters on the Prairies
Chisel plowing is typically a fall pass. A chisel pass in fall leaves residue on the surface to hold topsoil over winter, but it can also leave a rough seedbed, so a lighter tillage or harrow pass often follows before seeding. A chisel plow fractures a compaction layer that sits at or near its working depth. It cannot break compaction deeper than that. If you want to know what is going on below the surface first, our post on soil compaction tests you can run before fall tillage shows how, and the term soil compaction is covered in AgriPedia.
How producers handle it
A lighter tillage or harrow pass follows in spring to smooth the rough seedbed that chiseling can leave behind, which is why a finishing pass or harrow is so common.
Do not chisel moist or wet soil. It compacts and smears instead of fracturing. Deep work should not bring salts, rocks or carbonates to the surface.
Chisel work counts as conservation tillage because the residue stays on the surface, where it holds topsoil over winter and keeps moisture in the ground in spring.
Equipment that fits
The Mandako Chisel Flex is our chisel plow for this job. It works 1″ to 6″ deep with HD shanks on 12″ spacing at a 50Β° angle. Each shank carries an 800+ lbs trip, so a rock lifts one shank and the rest keep working. The flex frame follows the contour, so the shanks at the wing ends cut the same depth as the ones at the hitch. The harrow is optional: 4-row for a finer finish, 3-row if you want less weight on the machine. Both mount behind the shanks. Before you run the chisel across the field, check that the soil is dry enough to fracture.
