No-Till Farmer Blog

It’s really dry here. The neighbors well pump disappeared and there was a hole 20 feet wide and 20 feet deep!

We got an inch of rain November 17 and more than that Thanksgiving. The fall-seeded crops doubled in size overnight! I don’t ever remember that happening before.

This was another year for the record books. No-till saved my hide once more. The yields were very good for only a 1-inch rain June 12 and a few light showers after that. The 90 days of 90-degree heat took the top-third off our yields, but we still made a little money. I try not to think about the forward contracts that paid less than the grain from the combine or in the bins.

The new R09 inoculant from ABM made 7 bushels more soybeans. The SabrEx trichaderma seed treatment made 10 to 20 bushels more corn, 14 bushels more wheat and 3 bushels more soybeans. That was our bright spot for the year.

There is a new 115-day hybrid with big, pearly kernels that really held up and yielded well in this hot, dry summer. I am going with that hybrid on one-third of my corn acres next year.

I don’t remember so many piles of lime and gypsum remnants as seen this fall. Farmers had a little extra money and plenty of time to get it on. We also might have record acres of cover crops, although the acreage is still quite small and just catching on. The tillage radish is hot news across the continent — yes, even in Canada. Farmers are looking at every tool available to gain an edge in crop production.

It was a good but trying year, but demand has stripped our supplies. That means all our inputs went up, too, so the profit challenge remains. The markets are very volatile.

I hope you had a good year, and from here to 2011. It is right around the corner!

Will all that dry P and K that we apply this fall be available next spring? That is the question that I struggle with after getting my soil sample results that we pulled this fall.

Since harvest ended so early, I wanted to get caught up with our sampling that needed to be done last year, but was not able to since we had a late, wet harvest. I resisted initially to pull samples this fall because of the dry soil. It seems that when we sample in dry soils, our results are somewhat skewed, especially with low phosphorus levels. But this year, we were up against 3 to 4 years in not pulling samples on some farms and it was a perfect fall to lime. So after a half-inch rain, we pulled the trigger and sampled several hundred acres.

The results are in and just as I expected, the P results were a lot lower than I expected, whereas also some K levels were on the minimum range. Our samples are sent to Midwest Labs to get not only what levels are in our soil, but also what is available to next year’s crop.

My dilemma is this. Should I apply the recommended P and K rates this fall based on my tests and would it be readily available to my corn and soybean crop next year?

I will definitely apply lime based on what is needed, but applying P and K at the full rates is something I’m hesitant to do because I feel my return on investment with $470 per ton of K and $650 per ton of P will not be fully utilized.

My plan of action is this. On my soybean crop next year, I will broadcast what is needed because basically it would be the only opportunity to fertilize what is needed. But on my corn crop, I plan on applying a minimum amount of dry P and K because of the opportunity to put on what is needed with my corn planter and with my applicator.

With my corn planter, I plan on adding 4 gallon of 10-34-0 with my 28% and Thiosal. The agronomist experts have told me that the corn plant uses most of its phosphate up front before tassel and that P moves very slowly, and they say a lot of K is used on the back end of the growing season. So, instead of having my total amount of P and K laying on top in the dry form, why not have it also be readily available in the liquid form in my side band?

Having a minimum amount of N-P-K  with my pop-up fertilizer and adding some with my side band, it seems to me that it would be readily available when needed. Then at sidedress time, I plan on adding 10 gallon of 4-10-10 with my 28 and thio to give me some added K when needed after tassel.

Even though I will have to handle more liquid with the planter and at sidedress time, I really feel that my investment in my fertilizer would be used more efficiently. I also have to manage each field differently with mixing needed amounts on the go, so this will take an extra effort and patience on my part. But having  a full recommended rate broadcast this fall seems like a lot of money that would be a hit or miss for the corn crop.

With the mineralization we have in our no-till soils, I just smile when I see these recommended rates from the universities of what is needed to produce a corn and soybean crop. It would be hard for me to survive financially to spend the kind of money that is applied with the amount of N-P-K that conventional folks use. Another good reason to appreciate that no-till is king.

Last week, I told you some observations about my corn harvest. So this week, I thought I would change gears and give you my insights on our farm’s soybean harvest.

The biggest issue that I notice this year was where I post-applied my glyphosate in Roundup Ready soybeans compared to where I did not post-apply any glyphosate.

My burndown program consists of 3 ounces of Valor XLT along with 12 ounces of 2-4,D E-99 in the spring with a crop-oil concentrate 1 to 2 weeks ahead of planting. The soybean crop was planted from April 22 to May 4, so we actually had a good jump on the calendar this past year.

The crop emerged quickly with plenty of moisture and heat. From mid-May to July 1, we had constant rains that actually slowed the soybeans down, but still a lot of my residual Valor herbicide was holding its own along with the help of a good canopy. With that, I decided not to spray 25% of my soybeans with the post application of glyphosate.

During August,  I had some weed escapes, but nothing that I thought would hurt yields too much. I somewhat make a rule of thumb to put away the sprayer after July 1 because I would likely do more harm than good.

To my surprise at harvest, I’m glad I did put away the sprayer. What I saw with the yield monitor was something that really shocked me.

My yields where I sprayed my post application of glyphosate averaged 59 bushels per acre. With the somewhat weedy part of the field in spots right next to where I post applied my glyphosate, my yields averaged 65 bushels per acre! This field was planted the same day with the same variety with the same soil types and same planter.

The question is why the difference? Could it be that the glyphosate post-applied has something to do with the yield reduction? Is this why our soybean yields have not increased dramatically for the past 10 years, but our corn yields have exploded with our superior hybrids. Surely there has been research done for this, or maybe this is just a coincidence. It sure was not due to wheel tracks from the sprayer because my tires were in-between my 15-inch rows where I applied glyphosate at the R2 stage.

Last year, I had a suspicion that something was going on where I noticed a 5- to 8-bushel-per-acre increase in yield where I post-applied Select and Flexstar on my Roundup Ready 2 soybeans in comparison to where I post-applied the glyphosate. Hopefully, you blog readers can give me some insight to this because I am surely not the only one that has noticed this. Your thoughts are appreciated.