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How to determine if no till is right for our farm?

J

JakeBrakeIH

Member
Hey guys, we have been hiring a custom planter to plant our corn seed and he is very pro No Till. We have been doing this way for number of years and in most cases had really good luck with it. One field we have has had not the greatest corn on it the past few years and wonder if we need to try some different thinking.

We just took soil samples from around the farm to help compare "good ground to poor ground" and I found it interesting that this one field's soil texture was much different. Rather than being a good mix of loam, clay and silt, it was very fluffy/airy if you will. It wouldn't make a ball in your hand where the other fields would. It also seemed as if the old roots and other organic matter was having a hard time decaying?

My question is, in this situation would plowing it help bury the field trash and old roots to speed up decaying? The field has no been tilled in roughly 15 years. It went from a hay field and directly into a no till corn field.

Thanks!
 
One way to know, is to plow it and see how it turns out next year.I no til a lot, but fields that get solid manure once every 5 years or so are plowed, but yields remain the same. Ben
 
See how the soil tests come back. No till ground will build more organic matter- that is an advantage. Soil will hold more water and nutrients when it has higher organic matter content. It is common for no till soil to get a texture like rich chocolate cake- just like the soil of an undisturbed prairie, or a forest floor.

Is the field history the same for the rest of the fields??
 
Yes, this particular field has been corn for a number of years. Our farm is in southern Rhode Island and getting our hands on ground is very difficult and almost forces us to plant corn each year. We are planning on rotating a pasture into corn this year and help amend the soil in other areas in the mean time.

This one field was plowed and seeded into hay in 1996. It was hay for around 12 years and then no till corn since. It has been harrowed but no very deep here and there. Many of the other fields have been remained corn and have been plowed around 10 years ago and since no till corn. The fields that have always been corn since I have been a kid, are not yielding as much as the old hay fields (no big surprise).

Thanks again everyone. Trying to talk the uncles into new things is like pulling teeth. Love having all these different ideas!
 
Sounds like you have livestock- is the corn chopped for silage? UVM has shown a consistent 2 ton yield advantage when planting a cover crop in between continuous corn silage crops. Might be worth checking out.

Keeping a stand of hay for only a few years and then rotating to corn for a few years can work as well. Yes you need to seed more often, but you will get better yields of hay and corn.
 
What will the organic matter and CEC be from the soil test. That will help with what type of soil it is.

What will the ph be. That will help with lime needs or seed adjustments, if low or high.

What will the salt ratings and sulfur be, that will help know if it's wet or not.

What are the k and p and m percentages, see if the soil is balanced. Here the k% is always low, even though we have a lot of k in the soil, either spend a ton on tons of it or manage it with the right seed and banding some k in the root zone.

What is the P and K. High or low or out of balance.

Corn on corn will build up organic matter. In a peat type ground that can get to be a problem. We all want high organic matter soils, but I have stuff that has been plowed or chiseled for many decades to keep the OM down a bit, it gets to be odd soil when it's above 8% OM and/or ph either side of 8......

Paul
 
I think that you can pencil out alfalfa as profitable if you figure minimal annual input.Good dairy hay should sell for close to 200 per ton. Stand would last at least 4 years maybe 7.
 
Who says that you need to rotate corn? I've got a field going on 7 years in continuous corn and it just did 210bu/acre. I'm transition more acres to continious corn and i know many people that cant remember the last soybean they planted. If you run the erosion numbers corn on corn is much better for the soil than soybeans(even notil beans loose a lot of soil due to lack of cover)
 
I always follow beans with winter wheat so there is great cover crop in the winter. Usually get the wheat in first week of Sep.
 
My brother has been using no-til thirty years plus, and he's still learning from fellows like soil scientist Ray Archuletta. Look up some of his seminars, especially the soil slake test. Really makes sense how he explains it, also talks about how important cover crops and earthworms are too.
 
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