Cultivation Of Crops: Tillage

Showing posts with label Tillage. Show all posts

Mar 13, 2017

Why Tillage Now?

We have been seeing a lot of late winter field activity this year. If you are putting on Nitrogen, are you doing it knowing you might lose it? Are you using inhibitor? This is more like fall applied than spring applied.

What about tillage? You are killing very few weeds since they are not growing. You may be smoothing out the ground and setting it ip for erosion. Rough ground prevents erosion. You might be smoothing it out and setting it up for crusting.

Do you plan to till it again before planting? Why till now? Are you plannig to kill weeds chimically and plant in a stale seedbed? That might work.

Before you do a winter tillage operation ask yourself why.

Aug 23, 2015

Getting Residue to Break Down

Why do we want residue to break down anyway? Some say we want to release the nutrients. That may be especially true in the case of nitrogen. More likely we don't want to tie up the nitrogen with residue breakdown because we want it to be furnishing nutrients for our crop.

No-till Farmer ran this article on residue breakdown , but it offers little in the "how" department. One of the reasons I see for wanting residue to break down, is for soil warmth and aeration. If we are in a high residue cropping system, if the soil is completely covered, it may keep soil wet in the spring. Properly done vertical tillage can help break up the residue and start decomposition in three ways. One is that we make the pieces smaller. Two is that we mix in small bits of soil which contains microbes that inoculate the residue to decompose. Three is that we expose a bit of soil to allow improved air and water movement. Keep in mind that vertical tillage should be shallow and should not bury residue. Another tool that will have the same effect is the Aerway. If those tools are not available, a very light disking could help. The disk should be in the ground an inch or less.

Some people like a bit of UAN over the top to break up residue. The shortcoming is that it is really a waste of nitrogen. Something else to keep in mind is that the root residue in the soil maybe more of a drag on yields in corn on corn than the residue on top. Perhaps a small amount of nitrogen incorporated would help with that issue. The residue on the surface is not really the problem with nitrogen tie-up, because it has limited contact with the rooting zone.

Good drainage is also important for good residue breakdown. Tile drainage will promote better aeration, but even good surface drainage can help.

Jan 7, 2015

Saving Trips Across the Field

agricultue Tillage Vertical Tillage

In keeping with a theme, besides fertility and crop protection products, where can you cut back?

When I was a young soil scientist in Madison County, the debate was still open as to whether or not conservation tillage works. I think that is long settled, but we still sometimes see recreational tillage. You should definitely be looking at the number of trips you are making.

Do you really need to "size" that residue with a disking or vertical tillage before chisel plowing? I would say not.
Does the soybean stubble really need primary tillage to plant corn or can you get by with just some vertical tillage or field cultivating?
Do you need to make that second pass of secondary tillage before planting? The planter will push the clods out of the way.
If your field was ready to plant and you get a rain on it, why do you want to till it again? The stale seedbed will be firm and give you a more even stand.
In the past, researchers have found that soybeans yield best when drilled with no other tillage.

Consider combining crop protectants where possible. Apply fungicide and insecticides together is one of those combinations.

Can you cut back on seed costs? I defer to the seed corn people on their population recommendations. They know what it takes to get the most out of a particular hybrid. Soybeans however can be very forgiving on populations. Research I have seen says that 120,000 to 130,000 soybeans per acre is enough in most instances. Of you are still planting 160,000 try cutting back to 140,000.

Nov 9, 2014

Tilling Wet Soils

Tillage

I was working an area that is very wet today. Fields are rutted by harvest equipment. A few areas were starting to gray off, but low areas are still extremely wet. One of the big acreage farmers in the area had three 4 Wheel Drive tractors pulling disks through the mud trying to fill in the ruts. The disks were throwing out balls of mud, and I am sure they were making the compaction worse.

Another thingy tcncerned me was that a few people were applying anhydrous. I am sure that there were areas in the field where the slit closing.