No-Till Farmer Blog

Planters are rolling in parts of southwest Ohio. It’s still very heavy here after 2-4 inches of rain last week, and only certain fields in certain areas are fit to plant. Most of us have had 20 to 25 inches of water since April 1.

June 5 is a big day for us. Should we take prevented planting, or take partial prevented planting and plant beans, or what?  Each farm is different. I have a farm that needs fencerow and drainage work that might be a good candidate, but it grows really good crops, too. I’ll know by Sunday and will have to make a decision by then. It’s covered in headed-out rye, which is another problem to manage.

I enjoyed the last blog on the subject by Dan Gillespie. He did a better job than I did. Maybe I could have done what he did if I had pushed a little harder, but we just haven’t had many days to do anything right in Ohio.

After we plant, I’m toying with the idea to roll the rye flat and level the field for the combine header. I’ve questioned why so many farmers are rolling fields, and this might be a good chance to make my own conclusions.

There are a few fields of corn up, and I saw my first sidedressing done today.  There are a handful of soybean fields up — all no-till — and they have a big jump on these later-planted fields that are coming.

I have one farm of wheat that is about the farthest along of any I have seen, and I have another that is one of the latest. What a world of difference 2 weeks in planting dates made on final maturity.

We are in for another crazy year of weather in Ohio, and we envy all of you who have everything planted and are off to a good start to a profitable year.

Ours is yet to be planted.

Our spring in northeast Nebraska was similar to the spring of 2009 where cool, moist (not really wet) weather kept me from killing the cereal rye cover crop in the soybean stubble at an optimal time. A virtually dry last quarter of 2010 didn’t provide much moisture for the aerial-seeded cover crop to get a good start at growth going into winter. Some good snowfall in January and February helped the rye stay viable until 2.5 inches of rain fell in mid-April and got it going.

The 2.5 inches of rain was followed by very cool, moist (but not wet) conditions for 2 weeks that precluded the spraying of glyphosate to kill the cover crop. It wasn’t until May 4 that the weather gave me a shot at it. I applied 36 ounces of 5.4-pound glyphosate (Durango) and 1.125 pints of Surpass (acetochlor), along with a 1.5x rate of water conditioner because of the tough conditions.

My goal is to terminate the cereal rye at 8 inches. Knowing that I was facing 8- to 14-inch-tall rye made me aware of the fact that allelopathy and soil moisture depletion were going to be more of an issue.

I had read on a no-till cover crops listserv over the winter that allelopathy is more severe when the ground conditions are cool and wet. The gentleman blogging said that warm soil temperatures and in-furrow, pop-up fertilizer help corn plants overcome allelopathy.

Having had that experience in a low, wet area that I sprayed in spring 2010 and planted the next day — which was followed by 2 weeks of wet, cool soil conditions, I decided to wait until the soil temperatures warmed up to plant corn this year. The cold, wet soils did seem to exacerbate allelopathy and the corn in that area was behind the rest of the field in maturity and yield.

The area stayed wet through mid-July, so I believe the extended wetness was a factor as much as the rye allelopathy. Had I not been planting non-GMO corn, I would have considered planting and killing the rye after it had taken up more moisture.

I decided I’ll just take the planting season in the order Mother Nature gives it to me. It was already April 29 and I knew I’d have to plant soybeans sometime, so I no-till drilled 250 acres of soybeans, some into a rye cover crop on dryland sand corn stubble that I had aerially applied last fall. Having a GMO crop in the ground makes the cover-crop management a lot easier.

The soybeans are emerging as I write. I drilled them 2 inches deep and got 0.2 inches of rain that night. Monitoring the moisture depletion and the weather forecast, I decided to terminate the rye on May 4. It’s a good thing I did, as heat and wind on May 9 and 10 may have compromised the soil-moisture situation. The sandy soils did not dry out and the beans would have emerged even without the nice 2 inches of rainfall received over the last two nights.

So, back to corn planting we went on May 6, taking it in the order Mother Nature led us. The silty clay loam soils had dried out pretty well with 6 days of warm, windy weather. The soil temperatures were warm and it was time to plant. Knowing it was dry and with no good chance of rain in the forecast, I set the planter deeper to get a minimum 2.5-inch seed depth.

In an area where the helicopter had doubled up the rye seeding and it was 14 to 18 inches in height and very soddy, I kept the saddle tanks on the planter and the seed boxes on the upper half of capacity to ensure that I had adequate weight to cut and penetrate, place the seed at 2.5 inches, get good seed-to-soil contact, and optimally close the seed furrow.

Following 2 days of 90-degree temperatures and wind on May 9 and 10, we went out on May 11 to check for germination. The seed had germinated, with a 2-inch-long radicle and half-inch long mesocotyl. It appears planting would have been successful at typical seed depth, but a nice rainfall of 2.45 inches on two successive nights May 12 and 13 should ensure a nice even stand of corn. The half rate of acetochlor should activate and provide weed control until the floater comes with 35 gallons of 32-0-0, 6 pounds of sulfur and 1 pound of atrazine.

The post herbicide program in the non-GMO cornfield will be Steadfast, Callisto and atrazine. In the areas where the cereal rye was well established, I will look for the opportunity to take advantage of the allelopathic effect and use less or hopefully no post herbicides.

Rain makes us all good farmers. No doubt, the venture would have been more challenging with the cover crops drying out the soil to the extent they did. Now we will sleep easier.

A year ago, I had corn out of the ground. This year, I don’t have a seed planted. What a difference a year makes!

If it ever gets fit, we are ready to go. We have added a sprayer to our operation, which we have not been able to use yet, either.

The planter is ready to go and we are going over the drill again, adding some parts we did not get installed the first go round a month ago. Funny when you have time to do the same job twice.

We have needed a sprayer for years, but limped by in our expansion with custom application. This will really add to our efficiency and pay for itself quickly. We are blessed to have good help to operate the new spray rig and a trailer to nurse it.

The Martin setup on the planter and drill is going to reward us once more in cool, damp no-till soils. That system alone has allowed us to do more and better than any one thing we have changed in the last 15 years.

I got everything fertilized last fall before the price went up and now I don’t have to worry about it when the weather does break. Some nitrogen before and after planting and we are ready to go.

You can tell this is going to be another crazy year. Last year, we had near-ideal growing conditions through the month of June, when the rain shut off. We had no rain after July 12 until way after harvest. The fall-seeded crops and covers had a hard time getting established until we got some rains in November.

Last year, it rained all May and this year, it rained all April and has so far in May. We may not get in until the end of the month. Such is farming.

I am really happy we got as much planted as we did last fall, but the rye is getting out of hand. We had little erosion with the 15 inches of rain so far since the first of April, thanks to green fields.

I have one farm of wheat that is wet and the water was too much for it. It will go to soybeans. My other wheat looks good.

Marketing is where it’s at and it’s been a wild ride. I have no doubt that ride will continue.

Good luck to us all. It looks like we are going to need it.

While traveling through the Western Corn Belt with No-Till Farmer managing editor John Dobberstein last week, I got the opportunity to walk on seven no-till farms over the course of 3 days — three in Nebraska, one in northwest Missouri and three in western Iowa.

We found that most of the farms were using anhydrous ammonia as their nitrogen source — a decision primarily made because that’s what the local fertilizer dealer carries. However, it was interesting to see one farm taking a totally different approach.

Kent and Steve Krause from Adams, Neb., were applying all of their fertilizer at one time with the planter.Their 16-row Kinze no-till planter applies both starter fertilizer and 10-34-0.

According to Steve Krause, who runs the no-till planter, they mix the fertilizers together and apply from both the tanks on the planter and one on a trailer towed behind the planter. The fertilizer is applied through a coulter in a 2-by-2-inch placement alongside the seed.

While applying fertilizer at-plant slows down planting considerably, the Krauses say they are eliminating one pass across the field. Pulling a cart takes some of the weight off the planter — and keeps it off the tractor as well. They say they are not concerned about compaction because the soils in long-term no-till fields, along with the residue on the surface, seem to absorb the weight. They also eliminate safety concerns using anhydrous.

One of the nice payoffs for the Krauses is that they’ve found their applied nitrogen rates are 80% of theirexpected corn yield goals and they are not as concerned about losing nutrients to leaching or denitrification.

I am quoting an excerpt from one of Dan Davidson’s blogs called, “N Self Sufficiency,” quoting Rafiq Islam from Ohio State.

“No-till is a challenge for the first few years until the operator gets experience and the soil gets acclimated.” Islam added, “No-till farmers face yield reductions right off the bat — 20% to 25% — and those yield reductions last a good 4 or 5 years until the soil adjusts to the new production system. Also, they face compaction issues, weed control problems, wet fields and the immobilization of nitrogen because of the increased carbon being stored in the surface soil.”

This broad statement may be true in Ohio, Illinois, etc… the higher-rainfall states. I have not experienced a yield drag on no-till corn into soybeans in a corn-soybean rotation in semi-arid northeast Nebraska.

I find the generalization excessive and frustrating. I think 20% to 25% is a pretty strong statement, maybe the information should be released with a caveat correlated to the higher yearly rainfall issues combined with poorly drained soils.

Most weed control problems are derived from the producer’s reliance on use of continuous and/or limited weed-control technologies. We still have the old herbicides that work.

Compaction shouldn’t be a problem if the producer has been responsible with tillage use in his conventional-till operation.

Any of you out there care to share your experiences?