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May 10 may be the "last date" but THIS YEAR it may be too early. The vintage JD books suggest you disk first, then plow, then disk again a couple times. With those implements, I would roll the sod over (plowing 8 or 9" deep) with the moldboard plow first, then disk it two or three times, preferable twice with some sort of spring tooth harrow on the rear. Make the second disk pass at 8 or 9 mph. You should see dirt flying and weeds flying higher than the dirt so the weeds stay on top and dry out and die. You don't have any tools besides the plow with horizontal shovels like a cultivator, either field cultivator or row crop cultivator. In my experiences the disk will encourage grasses, not kill them. You need a pass with such shovels (and having a spring tooth behind them is a benefit for leveling) to kill off the grasses just before you plant. If you don't apply herbicides, you will also need to rotary hoe 3 days and 6 days after planting to kill off more young almost sprouted weeds. Then you will need to run the row cultivator before the weeds get to be a few inches tall, then again when the corn is a foot or so tall. The second cultivator pass can be set to toss dirt into the row to cover small weeds and hill up the corn. Unless you have perfect luck you will grow as large a crop of weeds as of corn and the corn productivity will suffer. That's why I'll be planting RR corn this week (if it truly warms up) and spraying with glyphosate a couple times. Your sweet corn won't take glyphosate, but it might tolerate other corn herbicides. But after reading applicator's handbooks and herbicide labels I have concluded that I don't want to work the other herbicides without a tractor having a well filtered cab which I don't own. After years of trying to grow good corn without herbicides, I've concluded I can't grow good corn. Gerald J.
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