Spring Planting 2011

[Norm]

Planting season is going full bore around here as the weather up until this week was too cold and damp to do anything. We started planting corn on Monday and by Wednesday got over 750 acres in the ground. Yesterday I started up with the seed drill putting in soybeans.



This is a JD 730 drill that is 15' wide with 7" spacing. We are planting 211,000 seeds per acre and run right around 9mph.

How are the rest of you folks that farm doing?

[Kansas]

The first corn is starting to come up finally around here. Kind of suprised because we had two nights down to 35 early in the week. But the cold seems to be behind us now. My guess is, about all the corn is planted in the valley. Mine got planted last week. They are just getting going on the soybeans. We really need some rain. I saw a couple of pivots running this week. Hard to believe 150 or so miles away,they are flooding.

[Coon]

Around here that 9 MPH would just mean STUCK.  That's if you even make it into the field.  Field work has not yet begun around here yet and is usually well under way by this time.  I keep telling all the farmers that they better switch over to growing wild rice cuz the conditions are more suitable.  :D 

[SwampDonkey]

Grains have been going in in some areas. The last few days we had rain, so not much planting. The fields around by home here are not even scratched yet, as long as Harv's Hollow has snow. It's about gone now, so probably this week grain will go in. Still kinda cold for potatoes, but very soon. Can't judge the farming by these "new" locals because they are always a late bunch. Father was always days ahead them at working fields.

[Ron Wenrich]

This past week was the first I've seen anyone in the fields.  Most are still not turned.  There has been the scent of manure in the air, so some of the farmers are taking to the fields.

[Kansas]

Lots of times around here its hard to tell if a field is planted. Since nearly everyone went to no till, and if they are following corn with soybeans in particular, you have no idea just driving by that its been planted. Not until the beans are up about 6 inches or so.

[SwampDonkey]

Doesn't that make hard pan after awhile if the ground ain't worked which will likely affect good root development. All that heavy tramping with equipment has an impact.

Crop rotation has been a big soil saver here. If you grow taters year after year your soil will wash away and leave gullies a tractor will sit in. Lots of terracing has been done to, but that alone doesn't solve it. I can take you to a spot where it's terraced and the soil is washing over the land in the woods. It's not even 10 % slope.

We can't grow peas either it affects taters with a root disease, rhizoctonia. Used to grow hundreds of acres of'm for the processor (McCain).

Soya beans and corn are new around here, probably 12-15 years for corn. Maybe 10 years for soya beans. They cut those crops so late around here then dry it. I don't see the economics up here because to dry wheat it was too expensive 15 years ago. So everyone just sold it for feed or air dried it for local niche markets. Dad's wheat was sold to a local gris mill for flour and cereal. Dad and another farmer were the only suppliers he would buy from. Dad got awards for wheat and rye he grew, from the flour mills like Dover, but they wouldn't pay much so they didn't get none. Too much subsidy in the west on shipping and growing. No way to compete on your own dime.

[Kansas]

The whole idea, as best as I can tell, is no compaction. As a matter of fact, farmers that no till are anal about anyone driving in their fields. Which can make logging in the winter along them a bit tricky. When you figure they are running 12 or 16 row planters, a lot of that ground never ever sees a tire on it. Some guys run grain carts at harvest that are tracked to spread the load. I remember also how it used to be. When the wind would blow, worked fields put a lot of dust in the air. You don't see that anymore. Some of these guys have done it for a dozen years or so. I would guess 80-90 percent of all the farmground around here is no till. There are still a few that conventional till, but they slowly seem to be switching. I don't know of anyone that no tills that has ever gone back to conventional till.

In this area, it is nearly all a corn soybean rotation. Very little wheat is grown in this area anymore.

[SwampDonkey]

Your climate is a lot dryer, they have had to find new ways. They will have to work it once in awhile though, no matter how wide the equipment is there is still lots of tramping over time. We don't get much wind erosion, I've never seen clouds of dust unless it's a truck going down a dirt road. A little in winter time on the frozen dry ground until snow covers it, but not too much.

[Jasperfield]

I can drive the 19 miles to town from my farm and not see 75 acres you can even get a tractor on, much less 750 acres.

When you're growing that kind of acreage fuel, fertilizer, & seed quickly become huge expenses.

I hope everything goes well for you this year. You've started off right by planting corn in the first quarter of the moon, and Tuesday and Wednesday were in fruitful signs.

[Gary_C]

I would guess 80-90 percent of all the farmground around here is no till. There are still a few that conventional till, but they slowly seem to be switching. I don't know of anyone that no tills that has ever gone back to conventional till.

Most everyone around here that switched to no till has gone back to some sort of minimum till. Some even back to moldboard plowing. Yields have been down too much for no till here.

Biggest problem here has been residue management on corn ground. If you no till beans into corn ground, a year later you will still be seeing corn stalks left over from the previous year. Even bean stalks are tougher and longer lasting. Part of the problem is genetics with tougher stalks that don't decompose easily. (But they do stand good.)

So now most everyone is going back to chisel plowing corn ground to bury some of that residue. And some have even gone back to chopping stalks to help decomposition. But if you do chop stalks, you better bury some of that residue or the ground will not dry out and warm up in the spring.

I am just getting ready to start planting what few acres I still run. Got annhydrous put on just yesterday and should get the corn in this week, if the rains hold off. I have been hiring guys to no till drill my beans, but this year it's going to be hard to find anyone. Found a neighbor that can do it, but he don't want to drill into the corn stalks. May have to insist as I don't have time to do tillage now.

[SwampDonkey]

Gary brings up a good point as well, and to work the humous back into the soil. Corn stalks do break down pretty quick the next season, but it also needs to be worked in to condition the soil good. There is one corn farmer here that grows for his cows, he spreads a lot of manure on his fields because his animals are in feed lots and not pastured. I see them hauling steady, and I don't think they use much fertilizer now. Hog farmer down the road the same when he was cropping beside the house he only used manure. That's worst than cow smell, but gotta do what it takes to cut costs.

[Kansas]

I don't know how the no tillers do it. I do know they talk pretty proudly about the percentage of organic material in the soil, so I guess it all breaks down eventually. A lot of these guys are farming 2000 or 3000 acres of river bottom ground, so it must be working somehow for them. About the only soil disturbance is some will apply anhydrous ammonia. Others want to go liquid so as to not disturb the soil. I imagine different soil types across the country make a difference too. I do know they save a pile of money on fuel not working the ground. I don't think they save a lot on equipment though. A 16 row no till planter and a tractor big enough to pull it has to cost a bunch.

Things have changed a bunch over the years. Friday we had to run our L190 New Holland skid steer over to a friends. They were loading the planter, and his L175 wouldn't lift the tote that had the bulk beans. Even with the 190, they had to bucket a little out before they felt safe enough to raise it up and open the chute to load the seed bins on the planter. I still remember not many years ago working for the local Co-op and loading bag after bag of soybean seed. Some of these farmers will never see a bag of seed during planting season.

[Norm]

We finished up beans yesterday but had to break out the 16 row planter to do so. The main driver wheel slipped the main bearing and kept breaking the roller chain so instead of waiting on parts we put some in with rows. Boy did that go faster than the 15' drill. I slept in this morning to catch up on some sleep. You wouldn't think it's work sitting in a tractor but with minor repairs and filling the drill 14 hour days take their toll on you.

Our farm was all done no till for years before we bought it, the yields steadily went lower and lower. I finally quit listening to the ISU "experts" and went back to disc ripping  in the fall and using a new implement for dealing with the ever tougher corn stalks.



It's made by Great Plains and is called a Turbo-Chopper. Our field cultivator is useless in corn stalks as they plug it up and you spend more time raising it to unplug and then it leaves big piles of stalks when you do.

We do no till drill beans into standing corn stalks and it works pretty well. On bean stubble we no till corn into it but still scratch it up once in a while. The theory with it is that the freeze thaw cycle in winter loosens up the compaction. It does help somewhat but it's no catchall for tillage.

[Mark K]

Norm- nice looking equipment. We run a similar setup as the last pic from what I can see or is that all discs? Ours has discs in front, viber shank next and a spike tooth behind while pulling an X-fold. Ours is a 25ft set. I just got back in for breakfast. Started zone tilling at 4:30 to keep ahead of the planter. Zone tiller is six row and planter is twelve, doesn't take long for him to catch up to me. Put first seed in the ground last Sunday between rain drops and sat most of the week. Started back on late Thursday and have 280 acres in as of this morning, around 800 to go. You guys run any zone tillers out there? Kind of saving our butt this year with all the rain. Makes our 8110 snort. I cant wait to be done, been out of the woods for four weeks because of the wet weather. Figureed we would be done by now.

[Norm]

Here's a little better pic of what the turbo-chopper has on it Mark. Our tc is really heavy and I'm running a 225hp tractor with it but still could use some more horsepower.



I don't know of anyone local that runs zone tillage but it sure looks interesting. Hope your weather holds so you can get the rest of the crop planted.

[SwampDonkey]

I've seen similar equipment here to that Norm.

Potato ground has to be disked because of heavy truck traffic during digging and then all the rock picking by tractor. A lot of tramping, needs broken up frost or not. We then harrowed three times. When spuds are up the cultivating begins and is done three times to hill the tators up good. You can tell the farmers that don't hill enough, too much light burn. Some spraying is done while hilling.

[Raider Bill]

Norm,
You guys have cool stuff!

How is anhydrous ammonia put down in/on a field? It's a gas right?

[Kansas]

Anhydrous is a gas of sorts, but stored as a liquid. The meth heads bottle the stuff. It has a boiling point well below zero. Its knifed into the ground through tubes from the anhydrous tank pulled through the field behind the applicator.  Nasty, nasty stuff.

[Mark K]

Norm- that TC looks like it would do a good job on corn stubble. We are going to try to do more zone tilling in the future. Only using it on soybean ground, plugs up with stubble on combined corn ground. The farm just bought a new 8 row head with a shredder on the underside to chop up the stalks. We run the zone tiller on a 8110 JD and I would say it pulls harder than our seven bottom Kneverland plow. Ended up having to put a Black Knight power chip in the tractor to get a little more out of it. Seems a lot of farms in the area are switching to zone tilling. Dealers around here are renting units also. Wish we had it when we milked, would have saved a lot of time and fuel.     

[scsmith42]

Norm, I'm just waiting for about 6 days w/o rain so that I can get my first hay cutting in.  The crop looks pretty good this year; I should be able to yield around 130 square bales per acre which is a great yield for around here.

Just need about a week w/o rain.

The weather man usually screws me... two weeks ago he teased me with a forecast of no rain for a week but I didn't believe the SOB.  Good thing too - it rained two days later!  :D

I've lost more harvests to rain than I've kept.

[SwampDonkey]

I can look down the road a bit on the hillsides where the dairy farmer pastures his small herd. Sure is nice and green now, looks like a lawn. 

[Norm]

One of the things we are considering using here Mark is strip tillage. The biggest downside is having to use RTK and buying the implement. I'm going to have to look closer at the zone tillage you folks use.

Scott I think the only thing more nerve wracking than grains is hay. Seems the weather service that predicts global warming could get a forecast 24 hours out. We are a couple of weeks away from our 1st cutting of alfalfa. The plan is to cut every 28 days....if the weather cooperates.  :D

[red oaks lumber]

if i'm going to cut hay right now i'll need to use scissors! some seed getting stuck in the ground here but not much, to cool and still raining

[Don_Papenburg]

I finished up corn today .put in another set of sweet corn  today because tomarrow was supposed to be wet .  Weather  report tonight suggest otherwise .  I have about five more sweetcorn plantings  to go .    Will start beans next week .