Spring Tillage ? OT
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Topic: Spring Tillage ? OT
Posted By: Matt (NEIA)
Subject: Spring Tillage ? OT
Date Posted: 15 Feb 2012 at 3:05am
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Please bear with me i have a few questions for you more experienced farmers. Have 7 acres of Alfalfa that i'm going to be putting to corn this year. (DKC 59-35 with sod treatment ordered if that will make a difference to any of my questions) I was not able to fall plow it. (not sure if that's good or bad, always heard bad plow job in the fall is still better than a good plow job in the spring?) I had soil tests done last fall and i will be having urea and pot ash applied this spring. First question, should i have the urea and pot ash applied and then plow it up right after it's been applied? Second question, as far as tillage goes, i'm planning on plowing, discing it twice, then following that with a cultimulcher to finish seed bed prep, any problems with that plan? Third question, would it be best for me to plow it, then leave it for a week or two before discing and cultimultching to allow soil to heat up or for the sod clumps to break up better then go right into planting it following the cultimulcher? Sorry for the long post but i know there is a wealth of knowledge on this forum and i'm interested in opinions and what others have done with hay ground that's going into corn production. Lastly i'm located in NE Iowa, soil is good black dirt with minimal clay and the field is tilled. Thanks in advance!
------------- 1955 WD-45 with factory PS |
Replies:
Posted By: HagerAC
Date Posted: 15 Feb 2012 at 7:12am
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I would say plow it fairly early and disc it soon after to level it off and break up any clumps. Then have the urea and potash applied and disc it again. Then cultimulch it when ever ready to plant. I wouldn't put the fert on first because urea should only be worked in the top few inches. HTH ------------- 30+ A-Cs ranging from a 1928 20-35, to a 1984 8070FWA, Gleaner R52 |
Posted By: blidtke
Date Posted: 15 Feb 2012 at 7:25am
| Let it green up then spray with roundup. After 3 or 4 days plow & disc right away. When ready to plant disc again to work in fert & plant. Useing will save a ton on weed control the rest of the year. |
Posted By: bill2260
Date Posted: 15 Feb 2012 at 7:38am
| Round-up will not kill alfalfa. If you have other weeds that is good option. If you have 25% or more alfalfa you will already have a nice N supply for your crop. Apply the urea as close to planting as possible to delay leaching. Corn crop will not begin to utilize the N until it is knee high or so. Bill |
Posted By: Matt MN
Date Posted: 15 Feb 2012 at 7:59am
Since when will Round-up NOT kill Alfalfa? It has worked every time we have sprayed it. not a problem. yes it would be better to spray it and let it die and then plow and disk it. ------------- Unless your are the lead horse the scenery never changes!! |
bill2260 wrote:Posted By: wi50
Date Posted: 15 Feb 2012 at 8:01am
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I really like to kill the sod ground in september but when it's not possiable. Use some 2-4-D when you spray. Kill it as soon as it's green and like others have said wait a couple days before plowing.
What are you useing for starter fertalizer? Sod ground will cary pretty good N for the most part and will vary for what you need to apply before planting. Or you may wish to wait and come back in late June and top dress. ------------- "see what happens when you have no practical experience doing something...... you end up playing with calculators and looking stupid on the internet" |
Posted By: Ben (MI)
Date Posted: 15 Feb 2012 at 8:20am
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You have so many different options available. A lot depends on your soil. Here in our Southwestern Lower Michigan sandy soil, the alfalfa would most likely get plowed down in the spring then the ground would be covered with a disc, then fit with a field cultivator then planted. My personal preference would have been to spray it with round up in the fall and no-till corn into it. The fertilizer application is a matter of personal preference. When I was tilling I applied my potash (I don’t use urea) both before and after chisel plowing with no noticeable difference-if I recall correctly. Have you had a soil test performed? The ground should warm up whether or not you work it right away after plowing. The important thing is you have broken it up. I recommend, at least on my sand, to work it right before you plant it so the weeds and the corn at least have a fair start. Good luck-please let us know how it works out. In response to bill2260-round up (glyphosate) does kill alfalfa as it is a non selective herbicide. Only round up ready alfalfa will not be killed. |
Posted By: jmikeyoung
Date Posted: 15 Feb 2012 at 8:51am
| atrizine will pretty well only allow corn to grow there, maybe plow it early wait a week and hit it with a disk. then disk it down the road sometime and get it ready to plant. the plant it and before its sprouted have your local coop come in and put down liquid fert. artizine and i think 24d. but not 100% on exactly what they add. i'm the semi driver not the sprayer. i work at the local coop and they do that quite a bite |
Posted By: Dave in il
Date Posted: 15 Feb 2012 at 9:16am
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The only time I ever planted corn into alfalfa I was working on a farm in southern IL for college placement. We waited until everything else was planted I think it was mid May, then they baled the alfalfa and I followed the baler with an AC notill planter. About a week or so later they sprayed Paraquot, this was before Round Up. I was pretty skeptical of the whole thing as notill was not a generally accepted practice in 1979. They got a picture perfect stand, I don't know how it yielded because I came home to work at a local fertilizer plant after graduation. Today I would spray Round Up and Notill. Spring plowing was avoided here even when everybody stilled plowed. Usually the ground was too wet when it was plowed in the spring and it made a plow sole (a compacted layer below the turned soil) that inhibited root growth no matter how good a seed bed was produced. Not every soil is a problem after spring plowing, and if you don't have a notill planter then you need some tillage to prepare a seedbed. After you plow if you have access to a field cultivator use it instead of a disc. Discs are compaction tools, they cut and mix the surface soil and crop residue but they are used to build roads for the same reason because they firm and compact the surface. If you have to use a disc try to only use it one trip if you can. The same goes for the cultimulcher (we call them cultipackers) they break up the clods and leave a firm seedbed with a fine nearly powder like surface. I've seen a good rain on ground that has had a cultipacker used on it leave it like a concrete parking lot, I mean your could roller skate across it. LOL ------------- AGCO My Allis Gleaner Company |
Posted By: Russ-neia
Date Posted: 15 Feb 2012 at 9:48am
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I wouldn't bother with tillage. Should have a pretty good supply of N credit from the alfalfa stand if it was decent at all last year. Alfalfa is great for breaking up compaction, so I wouldn't ruin the soil structure by doing tillage unless you were out there when it was wet and made ruts that need to be leveled. You can either spray with Roundup alone, or when we do it, we put some 2,4-D and atrazine in the mix and get super kill and usually don't have to spray again that year. Quite often I will plant then wait a week to be certain the seed trench is closed and let the weeds/grass/alfalfa recover from the planting pass and then spray with the above mix. (post-plant, pre-emerge) About the only problem I've encountered no-tilling into sod was insects - armyworm, stalkborer, etc. - so you should use a soil insecticide, BT corn or be prepared to spray an insecticide between emergence and 6 leaves if the worms start eating. ------------- The innovators offer what others will imitate. |
Posted By: bill2260
Date Posted: 15 Feb 2012 at 11:12am
| It didn't take too much bio-engineering to create roundup resistant alfalfa. I saw Les Vough spray test plots one time to clean up the boundrys and real grassy areas in the test plots. He used a shield over a hand sprayer to attempt to keep round up off of the alfalfa. Ten days later the alfalfa looks like it would all die. Several more weeks and ite was almost as thrifty as the first full year of production. Spraying roundup in the fall 2 weeks before your average killing frost date is best way to alfalfa. Spray in the spring and go back and look month later. Bill |
Posted By: steelwheelAcjim
Date Posted: 15 Feb 2012 at 3:04pm
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Alfalfa is the toughest plant i know of to completely kill next to canadian thistle in my area. Alfalfa can grow in such different enviromental conditions,so it grows tolerant to certain things that like to attack the plant. I would have applied the potash and plowed it last fall. That's out the window now. So, my suggestion is to plow this spring when the ground is good and firm. Apply the potash before plowing to avoid continous driving on "worked" ground to avoid soil compaction. A stated in previous posts, you can minimize the urea application because of the already abundant supply of nitrogen in the ground. Using more N just makes the plant stay green longer and doesn't allow the ear to dry down. Good luck! ------------- Pre-WW2 A-C tractors on steel wheels...because I'm too cheap to buy tires! |
Posted By: tomNE
Date Posted: 15 Feb 2012 at 4:42pm
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anyway possible to avoid spring plowing. it creats a plowpan and doesn't allow moisture to work it way down. I'd no till it. wait for it to green up. wondering why u didn't start this project last fall? ------------- AC from the start of my families farming career till the end! |
Posted By: BLee Mn
Date Posted: 15 Feb 2012 at 8:13pm
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Yes if mine, i would definately No Till it, Plowing and Discing In spring when wet a Big NO NO. I would go out now when ground frozen and apply P&K unless runoff is a issue, come back and sidedress N either with urea( before a rain) or use NH3, but before corn is 4-6 inches. I would aslo use a burndown before or righ tafter planting. Yeild is determined pretty early in corn, so you dont want to be short of N, although with Alfalfa will have some N credit, and yes i would use a insecticide also as 59-35 is only a VT3 ------------- Cowboy UP |
Posted By: DanWi
Date Posted: 15 Feb 2012 at 9:41pm
| It depends on the spring and if you use plowing as therapy, just don't plow wet and make a mess of things. If things green up early you could let it grow a little 6 to 12 inches then plow it under and make some green manure/ organic matter. Or this year as easy as the winter has been ther may be very little frost in the ground and you could get out there very early this spring and plow it, it would be more like fall plowed. |
Posted By: Matt (NEIA)
Date Posted: 16 Feb 2012 at 2:39am
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Thanks for all the replys guys! As far as why i was not able to fall plow it was due to a lack of time due to working a lot of overtime at my full time job. No-tilling it sounds like the best bet but unfortuanetly i do not have a no till planter nor do i know a neighbor who does and anyone who contracts no till probalby will charge an arm and leg to come do 7 acres. I havn't given much thought to a starter fertilizer yet, will i need a starter fertilizer being i had soil tests done and will be applying what the lab results told me to apply? (pot ash and N ) If so what would you guys suggest applying as a starter fertilizer? Someone also brought up insecticides, from my understanding VT3 protects against european and SW corn borer and northern and western corn rootworm, what other insecticides would i need to apply then and for what insects? Thanks for bearing with me and for the help! ------------- 1955 WD-45 with factory PS |
Posted By: ky wonder
Date Posted: 16 Feb 2012 at 4:38am
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i have turned heavy fescue sod as late as early june and got a good stand, and made a good crop, here in Ky. in fact i did a 3 acre food plot last june that did great.
Turning sod with a heavy cover has made a great differance in dry years, whereas it will leave the grass cover submerged, which will rot and hold moisture as the crop grows much better than stalk ground.
back in 1982, I put out 120 acres of corn on a city limits hay farm that a doctor had bought for development, we did not make our trade untill late april, and by the time i got the sod broke and planted it was late may, i did this all with a 40hp tractor with a two bottom plow and 8' disk, and a two row planter.
that turned out to be one of the driest years on record around here, and i watched and prayed everyday for rain, like every other farmer in the area, the sod ground corn made over 100 bu per acre that year and most local farmers who had planted stalk ground made in the 25-30 bushel range.
this is a heavy dairy farm area, and i had farmers lining up to buy the corn out of the field behind the picker that year for $3.50-$4.00 per bushel, behnd a two row picker, into there gravity wagons.
the next year the same ground and a wet year, 130 bushel corn, and i had to sell the corn at $1.23 per bushel and had to shell it to get that price because everyone had good corn.
So I for one have no problem breaking sod in the spring but wait for it to be at the right moisture level, i do not mind working wetter ground in the fall because i know that winter freeze's will break up the clods, but if you break it to wet in the spring it is almost impossable to get it to work up,
as far as starter fertilize the alfalfa will provide a great nitrogen starter, in this case i would break it, work my starter fertilizer in and plant it with a bt/roundup ready corn, and let it come up, let the filth get up then apply roundup post emergance, then if i was going to add any additional nitrogen i would broascast/sidedress it when the corn gets about 30 inches high.
that way you are not putting al your money in the ground at one time and you can make those decisions as you watch the stand emergence and early weather patterns
i would use a heavy drag behind my disk, to help with leveling on the first pass and use the cultipacker on the second pass.
just some thoughts ------------- i like old tractors of all colors |