Fallow Land

Case Nutty brought up a interesting topic a few days ago.
Summer fallow land.





I did not think any of you guys up north used summer fallow anymore.
In fact I think you guys even plant the headlands with plant fence post to fence post trying to cram as many plants as you can on a acre. I have even seen guys in the Dakota's cutting hay in the interstate neutral ground. (That's median for you guys not familiar with our words)







As you can see we do not plant the headlands and finding summer fallow land is easy with the planting and harvest schedule of sugar cane. We also plant everything on hilled rows. Those beans are 3 rows on 1 hill because that is a field in rotation with sugar cane and that is row width of cane. Allows them to use the same hiller on both crops.

Just noticing some of the differences in the corn belt and us down south.
Feel free to enlighten me on how things have changed for you over the years.
No summer fallow
No alfalfa in the rotation; just corn and beans corn and beans.
Planting headlands
No till with no raised rows.
No cattle on row crop farms anymore.

Is this because of better science today finding the old ways were just not correct.
I sure hope it is not chasing a buck today and let someone else deal with the depleted land when I am gone.

I live in E SD and we made a trip across the state last week to see the father-in-law in Rapid City. Ranchers west of the river seem to chem-fallow instead of physically working the land. Saves fuel and moisture instead of working the land and drying it out several times. Next fall they will no-till or hoe-drill winter wheat in the chem-fallow fields. A friends father lives north of Philip SD and practices chem-fallow.

John in La,

Very interesting post.

We are out of the loop as we have not farmed for years now... but I look foward to reading replies to this thread.

I have never seen beans planted in such a manner up here in the north.

The corn/bean rotation seems to work quite well but there are variations. Some pretty much plant corn year after year and beans just once in a while. Others plant beans year after year, One I know never plants anything but beans and uses rye and hairy vetch as a winter cover crop. Then kills the cover crop and no-tils beans right into the cover crop stover. When it comes to headlands, I plant 36 30 inch rows around a field and then plant the field. That gives plenty of combine turn around room and room for combines and grain carts to maneuver. Headlands account for a lot of ground. Alfalfa would be a good addition but to do that puts one in the hay business as well as the grain business. Not much demand for hay right now and marketing it is difficult at best. I don't see a whole lot of "depletion of land" due to return to the soil of huge volumes of root, vegetation matter and everyone pays a lot of attention to agronomy. I have an agronomist and application of nutrients is done on timetables as to plant uptake needs and with state of the art equipment. Reasons for ever increasing crop yields. That is somewhat self defeating, however, because it tends to oversupply the market. Which is OK with the politicians because they were taught from an early stage in their political careers to never let a food shortage happen. That would seriously shorten their political career span. We might see a lot of land lying fallow, however, if CRP becomes popular due to having way too much food in the supply chain. Given the current penchant to plant 97 million acres of corn, almost as many acres of soybeans and Brazil converting jungle into farmland, that is likely to happen. You must admit, we farmers are doing a damn good job of feeding the planet. (;>))

Not much if any land is ever left fallow here in South Central Ontario. Livestock farming is giving way to row crops. And livestock farmers that are left, are nearly all total confinement operations. You just don’t see cattle on pasture if the ground cans grow crops. It is just economics . One acre can grow say 15-20 tons of corn silage, now way could it provide that tonnage of forage in pasture. Here we mostly see 3 crop rotation taking over on good land. Corn , followed by beans followed by wheat. Hay is mostly grown by Dairy farmers. While there were once many cow calf farmers also growing hay, the number of cow calf farms has dropped like a stone since the money has gone out of the business, the age of the farmers has timed them out, while the land prices have gone through the roof. The only way you can run a cow calf operation here is to be able to rent marginal land. And all marginal land is being bought up by investors, cleared and drained and rented to cash crop farmers. Farming has changed during my lifetime. And soon , most people will just be surfs once again. Tenant farmers beholding to wealthy landlords. Many from foreign lands like China

SweetFeet;
We also plant 2 rows of corn on a single hill about 7.5 inches apart on 30 inch rows.
Allows us to keep using 30 inch rows and get the plant population up comparable to your narrow rows up north.

"Tenant farmers beholding to wealthy landlords"

We called that sharecropping in the south when I was a kid.

We do not flood irrigate here in Iowa so we can plant headlands or end rows.

I can understand chem-fallow for you guys that need to conserve moisture.
As you can see in my first picture we do not have that problem.

Another thing you never see around here is tile.
We laser level the field and plant on hilled rows.
Since the drainage ditch is on the side of the field they use a implement that cuts a ditch across the rows and allows water to drain.

There's tens of thousands of acres of fallow land in North Dakota this year due to heavy rains last fall soaking the ground and downing the crops and making harvest impossible because of mud.

Still too wet to plant this spring, so it's "prevented plant" for this growing season.

John in La,

That is really interesting. I wonder how the yields compare. Assuming there must not be a lot of difference or the best yielding method would be used in both the south and the north.

John in La,

That is really interesting. I wonder how the yeilds compare. Assuming there must not be a lot of difference.

Lots of outside investment around here direct or indirect. A lot of it makes no sense given the marginal productivity of most of the land here. Drives land up to a price where there is no payback from just farming it especially at today's commodity prices. Very discouraging to me as there is no money in this business to pay investors a return and I doubt with most of the others as well. There is talk of one farmer where the investor is ready to "retire" that farmer out of the business. Is it worth it to bring somebody in for what turns out to be a temporary basis to say that you worked 2,000, 5,000, or whatever acres. Sure, the investor might be willing to carry your bad years but is it worth it to walk away with just the shirt on your back truth be told when the day comes?

We will never see 200 bu corn around here.
Our climate just will not allow it.
150 bu is more of a average.

The biggest difference in the north and south is we still plant on hills where as you no till.
With 60+ inches of rain a year we need the hills to get the plant out of the water and provide drainage.

The old alfalfa, alfalfa, corn, corn, cover crop(oats)reseed left when the cattle left for most of the Minnesota farmers. I know my brother did anyways.Too labor intensive and no steady market. We used it from the 60 up as soil conservation. I do not know how well the new system of no till and conservation till corn and beans have been working since I left active farming a decade ago.

I put a hay barrier around my fields, just because I like to see it, others do not.

Our headlands are all planted ( IN ).They don't produce as much yield because of all the turning traffic. That is also where some transfer of loaded grain carts to semi trailer for transport is done so imagine the compaction that creates on headlands. In some cases and weather conditions the semi stays on the county road. Land maybe perceived as too valuable to leave headlands idle. If the land is rented here , the renter is paying for all the acres in the field whether the headlands are planted & producing anything or not. As far as rotation you pretty much nailed it C - Sb - Wh for grain farmers.

My garden was flooded last year and I had to replant. This spring I made ridges and it made a good difference when twice we had extra heavy rain.

Thanks for the education. Farming is done so different according to location. I live in an area where there may grow a really big crop of rocks. In these areas you do not dare use a chisel plow. Having said that, a field a half mile away may not have any rocks. Also, in this area the fields may be almost flat and then the next field is hilly and needs to be contours. Here the headlands are planted with row crops. BTW I have never seen sugar cane, but a couple of years ago Red Power was in Alabama and we toured some cotton operations. That was really an eye opener for us northerners. Another time we went to South Dakota. This was the first time I seen hill planted corn. This topic is sure interesting.

Thanks, John.

I really like it when people post farming and gardening pics and info from all around the country.

Gtractorfan,

Interesting garden plot.

A picture of sugarcane.







And the truck they use to haul the cane to the mill.
The big chains are to hold the bed as they flip it over.
It is a side dump.

Funny how some think they know how to do things better than some of us who have been doing it in our family for over 100 years,, No my soil is NOT depleted,, No chem fallow does not work here,, you need a LOT more H20 a year than I get to use it,, and beside our soil will turn to concrete and dry out using chem fallow,, I would guess 98% of who posts here gets 5 to 50 times the H20 a year I do here,, I would love to see the naysayers try to raise a 80 bpa wheat crop with less than 3" of H20 in 9 months time,, funny thing is I do not try to tell you guys who spray everything and use chemical fert to grow crops,, as I know Zip about row crop farming as those who tell me how dumb I am for doing things the way I do here post about me,, I could care less what most here think of my operation,, I do not use sprays,, have far less weed pressure than those here who do that and have yields that are two to five times what many here get trying to continuous crop, they have no clue how to keep soil loose to take h20 when it comes in a hurry like it does a lot here,, you do not like how I do things no problem,, but do not to try to even think you have a damn clue what works here compared to a place that gets more rain in one day or week than I get in a year as it is a insult. I have held the BPA here in dry land crops for many decades and I see no one getting any closer to it either, I use no man made fertilizer,, I do get a small amount of cow poo to spread every ten years or so on a select few acres I use to build up bad spots,, to someone how H20 is never a issue they see no need to "Bank Up" H20 over a year,, but again they have no clue what its like to raise crops with almost no water,, if those who are so smart here want to show me up come and buy a place here and do it,, seen many a person from Iowa and IL move here over the past 50 years,, not a one lasted over three years,, one even told me to my face how stupid we were out here,, he made it almost through the third farming season before the bank sold him out.



here is a filed taht was in barley last year, I wanted it back to hay so a cover crop of barley was planted again in it this spring with alfalfa and grass seed,, I am not sure it will grow the alfalfa and grass due to less than 3" of h20 int he last 9 months total,, but will have to wait and see, this is the production you get double cropping here, the next pics will show my crops on summer fallow ground but have received the same h20, this was planted a week after the next crops in the following pics




so how many still think I am wasting my time and destroying the soil here?

Case Nutty

I have no idea what I or anyone else said in this post to set you off but I am truly sorry if I said anything wrong.

Maybe it was because this thread was simply trolling in an attempt to start at argument. Are you really going to pretend that wasn't your goal here?

When tillable land starts at $3000 an acre and taxes based on what the land is assessed at, every last inch that can be productive, has to be productive to keep your head above water.

Fallow land is money going to waste.

John nothing at all you said Sir no worries,,

Are you as stupid as you sound? Must be as nothing you wrote is accurate,, insulting and child like but all incorrect,, nothing new here , you like a few others here have no clue what is past your front door and it shows,, but Please feel free to enlighten my poor ole dumb mind more it is so helpful,, I would be the one at your sale a year later when the bank sold you out to pay the note ,, and I would LAUGH like I am now at your uneducated words above

According to classic view you responded to my post. Not sure why you're so incensed. Don't know what I said or did, but if you really meant to respond to me, I'll bite:

Obviously YOU have no idea what's past YOUR front door because I'm only speaking for ME here.

We get a lot more rain than you but our growing season is limited. You're not getting 200+bpa out of 85 day corn. Every inch of tillable ground needs to be utilized. or you're losing money. There is no summer fallow here. The ground doesn't get to "rest" but then again it doesn't get all that "stressed" either. It's that simple.

We have fallow land here, its called abandoned farmland. If you don't plant a crop here though it just grows a big thick crop of weeds or grass. There is no way to leave a patch bare unless you keep working it 5-6 times a summer. I suppose you could deplete the weed bank doing that but it is no help to the soil fertility and a big erosion risk here.