How to grow corn

My son as been raising feeder pigs 4-6 at a time fattening them up and selling them to friends and family. He wants to plant his own corn next year. We have a pasture that he could use an acre or 2 for his corn. Where do we start? Ive never grown any field crops. He is looking for an old one row picker to get fixed up over the summer to use

2 ways. Plow grass under now, then disc, and cultivate, and plant in the spring. Or you could spray grass with round-up and no-till round up ready corn in, in the spring. You got to put on fertilizer in my country to raise anything. Most people here knife in ammonia before planting, and put down starter fertilizer with the seed. After planted, you'll need to spray or cultivate to keep the weeds down.
I would not mess with all of this for just 2 acres of corn. In my opinion, it just wouldn't be worth the headache. If I was you, and just wanted to have some fun with a 1 row corn picker, I'd just buy a couple acres of somebody elses corn crop, and pick it yourself. Otherwise you gonna run into alot of problems un-thought of. Seed corn comes in 50 lb bags, plants around 3 acres and is expensive to waste. Probly run into same problem on chemical and fertilizer. Every thing needs to be done in a timely manner. With only 2 acres, you'll be done before you even get started, but the real big thing is the headache of being ready for each little thing you do.

Buy a Farmall cub! I have 10 of them, great little tractor. Planter and cultivator. Makes corn growing more fun.

I wanted to cultivate one more time! Lol

And if you have any deer herds around, or even raccoons, you will have crop loss on a small plot like that.

I grow 2-3 acres of corn every year for live stock but have been doing it for a long time and used to do more. If I grow it on sod I will spray it with roundup (need a sprayer), plow, disk, drag and plant it with an old 4 row planter. I cultivate and pick with a one row picker. I have a planter and picker set for 36 inch rows. Also need a place to store the corn. For pigs will you just feed it on the ear or need it shelled and ground into feed. Maybe you have a neighbor that can spray and no till corn if he can actually get his equipment onto 2 acres. If you start having a lot of stuff hired done it is soon more expensive than just buying the corn. If I were starting all this stuff today I'd be out of luck. Hopefully this gives you something to consider. One thing about growing and harvesting your own, if you have the toys for it its a lot more fun than just buying corn.

Good thing Cubs are red or you would never find it in that corn crop. LOL

Thanks guys. Neighbor will plow it for me. I have a disc and I have a 2 row planter to pick up from a buddy at deer season. We also have a hammer mill to grind it up. Thought it might be a fun project and learning experience for the boy. Also have access to free seed too. Still thinking about it not sure what to do.

Don't let somebody else run your life. If you want to do it, do it. Everybody has to start somewhere. I remember back when I was in high school, the state FFA president had started with a few hogs on his grandmother's farm and had achieved a LOT in his 4 years in high school. Who knows what kind of potential your son has if you just give him a little help and encouragement.

Have fun and enjoy the experience.

I could write a book on growing corn, and Im dumb about it compared to the good operators. I can hit 200bu plus per acre, but my variable soils average 160 more often.

So there are 100 details to grow good corn.

You need the 10 beginner big steps first I would guess?

Corn comes up, gets 4 leaves on it, and sits there for 2 weeks feeding its root system. Then it takes off like a race horse and grows and grows. It really wants and needs nitrogen when it takes off and grows, and fills its ears.

But, it hates being shaded. So the biggest mistake folk make growing corn is letting weeds shade over it during that period it sits still and creates its root system.

So aside from seed spacing, seed depth, and fertilizer, the biggest mistake beginners make is letting the weeds grow and shade the young plants. The corn will panic and stop growing its roots and try to grow taller to keep up. This simply destroys any yield potential.

And improve that every year with giant rag weed patches escaping in my fields and shading the corn. I kick myself every year....

Anyhow, early weed control, lack of, is the biggest mistake beginners make.

Free seed, cool! Sometimes cheap corn seed is not worth having tho, we farmers learn that too..... you have a friend or family willing to share a 1/3 of a bag to you?

Paul

Not a reason in the world not to do it corn seed will keep put the extra seed in the basement for next year . I use to raise two acres of sweet corn every year planted it with a two row international planter made a 2 row cultivator out of an old mounted chisel plow we had .

Start with a soil test to see how much NPK and lime will be needed to build up the soil to produce a worth while crop. What is your plan for the following year? In the Midwest corn-soybean rotation has some advantages over continous corn.

How much corn will you need? To add 200 pounds per feeder pig you probably want 12 to 15 bushel of corn per animal.

It will probably wind up being some very expensive corn, but it will also be a priceless learning experience for your son. Have fun!

I meant to say, and I prove that every year with some giant rag weed escape patches....

My mother in law works for the local seed and fertilizer dealer so the seed I would get would be fresh. They always get samples to plant test plots and also sometimes a bag gets broken so they have some like that. I agree it probably wont be cost effective but I think it would be good for the boy and a fun project. Heck I hate to not let him do something when kids these days dont want to work or even go outside. He picked up 2473 pounds of walnuts and made enough to buy an old Ford Jubilee from a coworker of mine. We are going to get it running and he wants to use it to plant the corn and use for doing stuff for his pigs. He really wants to find one of the one row mounted pickers Ford made. I will get a soil sample because it sure it needs something. I dont know what to rotate the field with Im open to advise

thats our cornfield,,we had some good meals with sweetcorn,,,!!

He bought up all the cubs,,he made me work all the ground with handtools

If she works at the fertilizer plant, you should be good to go. They should have an agronomist I'd think. If they find out they're helping out an ambitious youngster, they'll probably bend over backwards to help out.

If we did it by the numbers none of us would be farming

(quoted from post at 20:39:36 10/27/21) My mother in law works for the local seed and fertilizer dealer so the seed I would get would be fresh. They always get samples to plant test plots and also sometimes a bag gets broken so they have some like that. I agree it probably wont be cost effective but I think it would be good for the boy and a fun project. Heck I hate to not let him do something when kids these days dont want to work or even go outside. He picked up 2473 pounds of walnuts and made enough to buy an old Ford Jubilee from a coworker of mine. We are going to get it running and he wants to use it to plant the corn and use for doing stuff for his pigs. He really wants to find one of the one row mounted pickers Ford made. I will get a soil sample because it sure it needs something. I dont know what to rotate the field with Im open to advise

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Dad bought our first Ford 601 side mount picker 57 years ago in 1964 and had it mounted on our 850 Ford tractor, the next year we mounted it on our Dexta because it had live pto and the 850 had more power for pulling loaded wagons up out of creek bottoms.
I became the picker operator after school and on weekends in 65 at 10 years of age and have my own Ford side mount picker I use today.
Aside from the JD 300 pull type picker that uses combine stripper plate heads I think the Ford pickers are one of the best made with less kernel lose than any other snapper roll picker

That said I don't recommend one for your use, for the amount of time and work required to mount and dismount a Ford side mount picker you can hook to a New Idea pull type and have most of the corn picked, also the tractor the picker is on is dedicated to picker use until the crop is in, you can't simply unhook the picker and use the tractor for another job.

We raise 5-10 acres of corn for cattle feed and grind it ourselves, having years of experience, using a larger tractor and keeping the picker inside on a concrete floor we can have it hooked up and operating in 15-20 minutes verses 1-2 hours years ago preping the smaller tractor and hooking up the picker after the jack and blocks had settled down in the dirt outside
If I was looking at cost savings I wouldn't plant the small amount we raise but I still enjoy picking corn and it reminds me of my younger days when me and dad picked 100-150 acres of corn for ourselves and neighbors



This post was edited by Destroked 450 on 10/30/2021 at 11:46 am.

That is a sweet looking picker. Funny you mention a pull type picker. There is an auction coming up that has a dearborn one row picker that we might go try and buy. I made a thread on it in the harvester forum
looking for some information on them.

Don't get too tore up over getting a picker. I pick 2 acres of field corn each year by hand. I have an old wagon that I put a "bang board" on and pull it with a tractor now; used to use horses for that job. It sounds rough, but if I'm honest it's not bad. Heck, I even enjoy it, especially in the late afternoons. Of course, it will take five times as long to pick by hand vs. using a picker.

As to the raising of corn, you've got some good advice. I plant mine with a 2-row planter in the spring after plowing and disking in the fall. Try to run my rotary hoe over it once before it spikes, then cultivate two or three times to stay ahead of the weeds. Usually side dress N when the plants are a bit bigger, as Paul said. Another word of advice: make sure you pick a planter plate to suit your seed; if the seed doesn't fit in the plates correctly, you population will be awful.

It's funny this came up, I've been out of the hog business for several years, but I'm in the process of rebuilding my hog lot so I can raise some feeders again. The corn I've been raising usually gets shelled and sold to people feeding deer, but given the increased demand for "home-raised" meat, I think my corn would be more profitable through the hogs. Your venture is the basically the same, and I can't see any reason why it wouldn't work, but it might take some effort to make it go. I say all that to say, good luck to you and your son, hopefully it'll work out for you!

Mac

Thats the hot set up , small maneuvers ,low up keep, lots of attachments,
Dont over mechanized starting out ,just the facts

Nothing wrong with putting a fence around the corn field and let the hogs pick it. Suggestion.
They even rooting it up for you next spring just disc and plant it again . Or move the corn field and plant something else ,get a crop rotation going ,will do better yields hogs graze clover

Remember this? Its easy.

When the kids were young and we had the amusement animals we planted an acre. First by hand. Then pulling an earth way garden planter behind a garden tractor. The last couple with an old IH 2R check planter with the drops wired open. The boy got a charge out of riding the planter. He was just big enough to raise it to turn around. We picked by hand and ground it w/ a Letz burr mill. Cut the stalks w/ corn knife and through them in for the sheep.