When to Cultivate?

I’ve planted a small field, about 5 acres of corn. I’m doing it the old-fashioned way and plan to cultivate it.

What is the recommended or average age/size that corn (or soybeans) should be cultivated?

Should the first cultivating be: After 3 weeks? or After 4 weeks? (Approximately)

How about the 2nd cultivating? How long would you normally wait, before cultivating, for the 2nd time?

This year, we got 2 inches of rain, about a week after planting, the corn was up, and another inch and a half, 3 days later, in north Missouri.

I don’t actually live on the family farm anymore, so I’m trying to get an idea, before I drive up there and look at the corn.

Thank you,
 
You do it when the weeds are small and tender and cultivating will take them out,simple as that. No time frame or size of the crop. If the drop is small,you have to use shields on the cultivator.
 
Plant.

Harrow or drag or rotary hoe just as the corn is breaking through the crack in the ground. This takes out the hair-sized weed sprouts. Shallow angle on the harrow, it won't hurt the corn but will kill millions of weeds you can't even see.

Cultivate less than a week after that, with shields, drive slow, again taking out the hair-sized weeds. (Or rotary hoe if you have one.)

Then cultivate about every 7-10 days after. As the corn is bigger drive faster, so you through dirt around it and cover weeds.

From the sounds of it you won't catch up, your weeds are too big, 1/4 of your corn yield potential is gone. You can at least cut back fertilizer if you were planning on side dressing later; no point to wastining the fertilizer.

Weeds are totally unforgiving; if you want to play the organic game (that is how u started farming for several decades, before organic was really a 'thing') you. Eyed to be fighting them before you can see them.

Especially in corn. Corn sprouts, grows to 4-5 leaves, and then sits there doing nothing above the surface, but it is growing its root structure.

If weeds come along and get as big as that little corn is, the corn interrupts its root building, and tried to grow taller over the weeds. This -messes up- the corn plant and it loses a great deal of potential yield.

Beans can get a little weedy and dirty looking, and you can recover from that mostly.

Corn - you already lost the game. Sorry.

I realize this is just a plot and not a big deal, but this is how one needs to deal with weeds in corn. They just totally destroy yields if you let the weeds get 1/2 the size of the young corn, and there is no way to recover, once done its done.

Paul
 
Man, I struggle with the autocorrect on this tablet. As well my mind is on the downed trees and storms today.... Sorry for the gramaticals.

Paul
 
My biggest trouble is quack grass. One plot I sprayed quack with RU a few days before the corn emerged as the grass was already up. Next year I might try RR corn or plant later and spray the quack first. Worked pretty good in the other plot. My corn is knee high and I just ran the rototiller down between the rows. I used a cultivator the first time but I do better with the tiller. Don't take out as many stalks.LOL! I didn't really see too many weeds; lambs quarter mostly and some pig weed.

Larry
 
This is my first year cultivating since I am now certified organic and I am having a few problems. I have a Dearborn two row cultivator and stopped cultivating some new emerging corn this morning because my shields are worthless. Are the shields suppossed to push sideways from the dirt going underneath them?- this is a real problem and often the shields are slicing plants out of the ground.
 
Dad had disk blades on shanks. Put them on in place of the the closest shovels, could adjust them pretty close to the row, would throw the dirt away from the row.

Man you had to drive careful with those! Front mount cultivator of course, to follow the row.

Rolling shields are better than the sliding ones. These days if you see rolling shields at auction they sell for a buck a piece, junk iron...... Pretty easy to add to any cultivator.

Paul
 
Well Korn, You have to let it dry up and then you have to be a darn good operator, it will be slow and frustrating, but it can be done.
 
slow and frustrating, those are second nature-lol
and tell, when is this dry out going to happen? Another 3/10's in the guage this morning and the wind is knocking all the fruit off the trees!
 
I'm in the dry part of southern MN I guess, and we have puddles in the fields......

My FFA instructor was talking about a special cultivator they got back in his day, was basically a powered row crop cultivator, tiller between rows it sounded like. He said with the rain the grasses got 6 - 12 inches high before they could get in. His dad had him cultivate all day with that tiller machine. Then after supper he would go out with the regular cultivator and redo it. Said the tiller machine just scuffed the surface, and was in low as slow as could go, to cut up the vegetation of the weeds. Then the regular cultivator would get through the mess after it wilted down some.

Yea when those weeds grow in a wet year, it is just a long tough deal to try to get things back under control.

Over in the Machine section of Newagtalk.com there is some pics of a fellow with a 12 row front mounted IHC cultivator, his ground looks dry, really doing a nice job with it. I hesitate to steal his pics and paste it here.....

Paul
 
Thanks, for sure going to look for rolling shields. Found a front mount cultivator hoping to fit on my Deere 60 but it is for a B and it has been in the weeds for 40 years.
 
I cultivate as needed till it canapies out. I adjust the cultivator shoes accordingly. I'll typically cultivate when it's about 2-3". I'll cultivate and side dress at about 12" and one more time at about 24". This is for my sweet corn and beans.
 
Not supposed to do that. I suspect you need to readjust the cultivator. I use a Farmall Super C with front and rear cultivators. No shields. As the crops get a little taller I replace the shanks next to the plant with hillers and intentionally throw dirt up on the base of the plant. It covers up the smaller weeds and helps the plants stay standing in the wind.
 

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