No-Till Farmer Blog

Most farmers are finished planting corn in southwest Ohio, or very close. We even have 200 acres of soybeans planted and wish we had gotten a few more done by now.

Many farmers ripped cart paths and worked them with one of the new light tillage tools. There are all brands and colors in the area. There is quite a bit of one-pass no-till or strip-till corn planted. Most of the soybeans will be no-tilled or a little light tillage to take out some tire tracks and ruts.

Most everyone is using seed treatments and inoculants on corn and beans. Poncho and Cruiser is on almost all of the corn and many other inoculants like SabrEx or T-22, Amplify, Amplify D, QuickRoots, etc. are being used to get that root growth advantage.

Americas’s Best or Optimize is being used on most of the soybeans. I think inoculants are a proven good return on investment on soybeans. Some are using popup fertilizer, but most will not. 28% and popup was used on most of the corn, but quite a bit of anhydrous was put down for nitrogen.

Most of my dry mixes contained N, P, K, Ca, Mg, S, Zn and B. Some fields called for Cu or Mn, but most fields are up to par with these nutrients. These recommendations came from soil and tissue tests on my farm and client’s farms. I see agribusiness adapting the same.

The wheat looks good after topdressing, and early tissue tests show a good balance of nutrients. The best time to pull tissue is flag leaf on cereal, ear leaf on corn and the top two trifoliates on legumes. I will pull tissue tests earlier and later where I am uncertain on progress, which is usually on new farms.

I’ve posted a video on my HyMark Blog and I hope you enjoy it.

http://hymark.blogspot.com/2010/04/misc.html

Like many no-tillers, Larry Bonnell of Pittsford, Mich., had a late harvest that made it difficult for him to get all of his acreage seeded to cover crops. He e-mailed me this weekend to share an interesting experiment he tried this spring.

Following are the excerpts of his e-mail to me.

“I have spread grain rye into corn stubble as late as November with excellent results. This year, I went and broadcast 20 pounds of annual rye into corn stubble on March 1 with the snow melting. Here in the last week of April, it’s 4 inches tall. I’m going to no-till soybeans into that corn stubble on May 1.

“I’m starting to see the added benefits of no-till after 10 years. My organic matter has risen from 1.7 to 3.2 in a very short time. Cover crops are the biggest thing that has helped.

“I quit baling wheat straw and blow it out the back. I then no-till annual rye into the stubble. On my soil test, I have 35-plus pounds of nitrogen for my corn and I’m cutting nitrogen rates a little.”

We’re seeing more tractors in the field every day in southwest Ohio. Many growers have, or are, tearing out ruts with every tool imaginable. Some fields are good enough to go straight no-till, but I’m not sure the percentage.

Early wheat came out of dormancy OK, but late plantings to the October 20 crop insurance did not fare as well. A few acres will be abandoned, but we are following the national trend of the lowest wheat acreage since 1913.

Some corn is going back to corn, but most will stay in rotation. Many growers will try to no-till soybeans earlier or at the same time as corn with two different rigs.

There is a lot of dry fertilizer and anhydrous ammonia going on and some early spraying is being completed. Winter annuals are not all that bad this year and I attribute that toward the later plantings last year and later herbicide applications. More residual was used than normal and that trend continues this year.

There will be several fields of LibertyLink soybeans in this region to compare to Roundup Ready and the associated weed-control programs. Pests are not a problem at this time.

Planters and drills are ready and it’s time to start planting. Soil conditions are very good.

I used to go out 2 weeks before planting and smooth out the gulleys that had washed in the draws from the past year. But then it occurred to me that these gullies used to be grass waterways when I was a kid.

Here’s what had happened: The waterways had been destroyed by tillage around the borders or through the use of glyphosate.

This is an excellent time of year to level off gullies and seed them down.

I sometimes think we get more soil loss from our unprotected draws and valleys than we used to in conventionally tilled fields. Think of it this way: If it washes a gulley in a draw once, it will eventually do it again!

Last spring, I seeded down 23 new waterways totaling more than 15 acres on my farms. Most of it was on non-highly erodible land soils.

I think it’s important to realize that while no-till is most helpful in protecting against erosion, it will not stop erosion in all cases. Depending upon your soil types, you may find that the best solution is to seed and maintain a grass waterway — even in no-till fields.

I hope you spent a good part of your Easter weekend with family and friends, particularly since you may be heading full speed into the fields if the weather cooperates in the coming days.

My father offered up some bits of farm wisdom during our family gathering Sunday when he told me that the weather you have on Good Friday is the type of weather you can expect for the next 30 days.

If that’s the case, southern Wisconsin farmers and many throughout the Corn Belt have got to like that bit of news. It was nearly 80 F at our home on Good Friday.

Of course, there’s another bit of farm wisdom, too, that says you better not plant corn unless field conditions are right. My father says he knows of one farmer in his county that already has planted 300 acres of corn. Of course, this same farmer was the first one in the field last year and re-planted nearly all of his corn.

There’s another saying: Get it done right the first time.