No till corn field I passed today

Bruce from Can. · Jul 5, 2016

This corn was no tilled in on May 28th, after rye was taken for forage. Looks bleak for a harvest. No till, no rain. Last picture is my wife standing in our conventional corn , planted May 8th.

Mark - IN. · Jul 5, 2016

That's sad and from what I can see, sizeable acreage. That's a lot of money (seed) and time planting. Now what? Pray for a miracle? There's something to be said about keeping and maintaining hedge and brush rows between fields to prevent or slow down soil erosion versus no till. My two cents worth.

Mark

Bob Harvey · Jul 5, 2016

Ouch ! for those guys. Yours looks good.

big tee · Jul 5, 2016

NO-TILLING who will farm it next year!!!!!!!!!!

ss55 · Jul 5, 2016

I've heard of no-tilling late planting soybeans into small grains further south around Kansas. Does late planted corn usually work that far north or was it an experimental planting?

Dick L · Jul 5, 2016

It's called crop insurance! Plant late and let all you working folks cough up the profit.

Traditional Farmer · Jul 5, 2016

All she needs is Jr Samples and Lulu Roman to help her wave.

4520BW · Jul 5, 2016

The best corn I ever had was no tilled in rye. It was planted as a cover crop but wet spring prevented me from spraying so I baled it and got 2 inches of rain before I got the round bales moved of. A couple of days later I mudded the corn in and even mudded the 28% in and that fall it went over 200 bpa which is good for this rolling clay. If I had been a dry year would of made nothing. Sold the hay because of the previous year drought and made about $250 per acre on hay alone.

coonie minnie · Jul 5, 2016

Being it was planted late, and then little rain, it probably wouldn't look better if it was tilled first. The tillage would have only lost more moisture... and added to the problem. No till wasn't the issue here- trying to plant late after a forage crop was.

Let us know what it looks like in October.

RBoots · Jul 5, 2016

That's not that abnormally late. Yeah its nice to have it in by then, but sometimes it just doesn't happen until into June, especially if the weather won't agree. Central MI here.

RBoots · Jul 5, 2016

Oh, and no crop insurance on this farm. Ever. Been good times and bad times as it should be. No one shouldering us but us. So you may have to combine in December, it happens.

504 · Jul 5, 2016

My place has nothing but no-till for 20 years. One trip with the planter, one with the sprayer, and on with the combine. It s all about input costs.

centash · Jul 5, 2016

Some here try to double crop soys after wheat, works maybe 25 percent of the time...Ben

Tim(nj) · Jul 5, 2016

I've had to plant corn in June too. I knew a dairy farmer who would sometimes plant a field of corn after barley, usually around last week or June or even up to July 4th, if he thought he might be short filling the silos. I thought forage sorghum or sudax would do better but he wanted all the same kind of silage.

Tim(nj) · Jul 5, 2016

Well, there is a final planting date and you get reduced coverage every day late from that day until there is no coverage. Not sure how Canada does it though.

RBoots · Jul 5, 2016

We almost have to till the soil around here or you wouldn't be able to get on it to fit it until into June. We fall chisel, and then run a cultivator and packer over it and plant in the spring. Otherwise the water just lays there. Joys of farming river flats. Had a neighbor that loves to practice no till, his ground had not had ANY tillage done for over 15 years. The last 5 years the crops looked terrible, the landowner he farmed in shares with said the yields had gone down the last 8 years in a row. Well they decided to tile it and it looked like the San Andreas fault lines out there. It is a bit of clay ground and where the tile plow had been, it left nothing but 2'+ hard clay boulders. We have, and use a no till Kinze planter to plant corn. Occasionally we use it as no till if it stays wet too long and we have to get things going. But, for the most part, it just works better for us to till the ground first. I think a lot just depends on the soil type.

notjustair · Jul 5, 2016

Some of my best beans are often no till into wheat double crop. Providing there is moisture left in the ground of course. The no till acres I can get onto a week sooner to plant. My ground is about 50/50. Some has to be tilled and some you just ruin it if you try. I just adjust the air bags on the planter. The no till drill just works the same either way.

tomNE · Jul 5, 2016

been no tilling since 92. i'm betting there is more to this story thens meets the eye!

IowaJohn · Jul 6, 2016

I saw a field of soybeans today that looked like that. Except whatever the cover crop was it wasn't taken off just killed.

JD Seller · Jul 6, 2016

NO till or conventional tillage makes little difference if you do not have enough moisture. It can be tough to get very good stands behind rye. We quit planting rye for early forages because of that issue. There are other forages that produce better quality and do not have the effect rye does on suppressing new plants.

I have seen great no till and poor no till. On my ground and farming practices no till just did not work well. I tried it for six years with declining yields each year. Went back to tillage and the yields jumped right back up. I think it is manure, heavy corn stalks and tight soils on my farm. In difference conditions it works. Also the cool soils just make it hard for no till to work well around here in early April. The planting dates are moving up and the ground is warmer when it is worked.

Bruce from Can. · Jul 6, 2016

Don't get the wrong idea . I am not blaming no till or the farmer , or late planting . This is just the results of a very dry June . Most years this field would be coming along just fine ,but not this year. The rye sucked up the moisture , and no more has fallen from the sky to replace it . Farming can be a gamble , and often weather has more to do with the out come at harvest then farming practices . I will bet this field will get two more weeks to chance recovering with rain , or be disc down and direct seeded into hay before the end of July . These folks have many acres of good crops , this field just didn't play out well with this years conditions.No till works best in this area of fields that are in wheat, corn , soy, rotation . Not as well no tilling out of hay. I got burned one year doing conventional till corn after hay , when we just didn't get June rain. Moisture is the story here , not crop practices. Bruce

Donald Lehman · Jul 6, 2016

The sweet corn I planted the last week of May did not germinate well at all because it got so dry. The sweet corn I planted a week earlier is starting to tassel. I replanted some of the corn that didn't come up and it's fair at best. My radishes and lettuce are not doing well either. Moisture-wise they should have been planted a week earlier.

rustyfarmall · Jul 6, 2016

My neighbor no tilled soybeans into a standing rye cover crop. Lookrd kind of bad for quite awile, but now it looks GOOD. I expect those beans to yield every bit as good as those on the other side of me that were planted in a more conventional way.

1206SWMO · Jul 6, 2016

No-till corn has been tried and tried in my area with mostly poor results.....However,no-till soybeans seem to work pretty good..

oldtanker · Jul 6, 2016

I think soil conditions may effect just how well notill works. Local guy here tried it. Pretty good farmer, keeps up with rotations, fertilizes as he should after soil samples. He says the first couple of years it was good then he experienced declining yields every year even on irrigated fields. Went back to chisel plowing in the fall and a disk in the spring and yields came right back. Now he notills most fields 2 years then plows 2 years.

Rick

Jim Phelps · Jul 6, 2016

Even if you no-till you still need to v rip on some sort of schedule to help open up the land to let water thru.

Tech 7 · Jul 6, 2016

I think moisture is a gamble no matter what system you use.
In my small corner of the planet most beans are no tilled, some of the corn is no tilled, the balance sown into full to minimum tillage.
I have a small field of beans that were no tilled into hay sod that was burned off last fall then resprayed a week before the field was sown. I have done this for several years and have been happy with the results.

No till corn field I passed today

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