We thank our fathers who passed their respect for the land to us.A special tribute to the previous generation of former neighbors who passed their respect and love of the land to us by their deeds. Thank you to landowners whose land we have farmed since 1991 for being open to new ideas and allowing experimentation. Thanks to the staff of Taylor County Iowa NRCS for their assistance with computer and technical skills.
A quote from the previous owner of our home farm we have owned since 1968: (He farmed from about 1920 to 1964)
“We were farming rectangular fields with straight rows and lots of erosion. The solution was so simple, contours with terraces.”
Today we are farming with technology piled upon technology accumulated since about 1960. Einstein is credited with this quote: “The same kind of thinking that got us where we are today will not get us out of the situation we find ourselves in today.” Agriculture has remained a biological process and is kind of like a balloon full of air: If it is pushed in at one point it will push out at some other point. It is almost impossible to change only one thing without affecting some other part. Taxpayers have provided technical assistance and basic research through the NRCS, ARS and others. As farmers what can our natural inventiveness and ingenuity design to move us closer to sustainability?
1971 First rye for cover, fall seeded w/endgate seeder & disked in.Became spring/summer finishing pasture for hogs.
1974 Used fertilizer cart w/rye mixed with fertilizer, disked in and plowed under when headed out next spring. Ground very mellow.
1977 Attempted to disk under headed out rye and plant grain sorghum.Tillage caused enough moisture loss =poor germination and emergence. Early fall flew rye into standing corn and cut corn for silage. Uneven seeding job.
1984 Planted corn into living rye cc, sprayed with glyphosate before corn emerged, soaking rain within 12 hours of spraying, corn never emerged
1990’s Used rye as cc after corn harvest strictly on sidehills for erosion control. Experimented with ridge-till (The ridge cleaners scalped the living rye off the ridges and pushed it into the valley between the ridges of the rows in the planting process)Looked kind of like a poor job of moldboard plowing at first glance. Landlord and his wife pulled in just as I finished a field. His question with a twinkle in his eye? “Are you a farmer?”
2002-2007 Rye seeded to erosion prone hillsides became standard following corn. Some was seeded with a tractor mounted spreader and followed with liquid hog manure surface applied. Some was seeded mixed with dry fertilizer over the harvested corn stalks. Experimented with seeding rate, termination timing etc.
2008-present Cover all row crop acres with cc, including few turnips with rye on cornstalks. Sb stubble trial and learn, currently 40 wheat + 15 Aust w. pea, +3crim cl+5 vetch
Conclusions: Subject to Review and Revision
Seeding rate (following corn before sb) 56lb rye w/fert18-46-30 in our case or slightly less when using drill
Plant sb at the same time as corn Apr15 target date to start planting both
Start corn harvest Sept 15 so can use early fall rains Can be seeded into late fall Nov better than nothing
Cattle removed March 1 from all cc (one spring cattle were allowed to graze until May 17, beans made 17 bu/ac when across road they made 45bu/ac
Consider shorter season varieties or hybrids, 175,000+seeds/ac with drill
Build topsoil and O M, may plant into living cc,Use 2, 4-D and a residual in the initial burndown if possible.
Cover crop following soybeans preceding corn.
Consider shorter season hybrids both beans and corn
Use aerial application or highboy if available
Terminate cc before planting, but I have seen this rule broken with small apparent yield loss. Drop 30,000 seeds/ac+5-8ga Lq N over the row, sidedress additional 60-100 lb/ac
Runoff is influenced at the square inch level energy from raindrops is absorbed by cc
2009 started planting beans at the same time as corn
Yields: Beans 50+, had 60 ave 2009, corn 125+ lots of room to increase this one
Making it work: Do what you can, where you are, with what you have.
Right mindset. It must work between our ears before it will work in the field.
Start small (cc rye after corn is easiest) Expect to find your own answers, network with others. No sales/service person from Dow, Monsanto, John Deere or any other big input supplier will be calling to see if the new practice is working for you. Practical Farmers of Iowa, No-Till on the Plains, Dakota Lakes Research Farm and other farmers who started sooner are resources for experience and knowledge.
Goals:
· Manage for soil health, manage for what we want; not what we don’t want.
· Collect nature’s free inputs (sunshine and water) before and after the cash crop.
· Look past the symptoms to the source of the problem. First look for a no-cost solution, if not available look for a low cost solution, if neither of those are available is it really a problem?
Cover Crop Mixes:
Follow corn:
56 lb c. rye $14
1 lb turnip $1.55
Drill $15
$30.55
Follow soybeans:
40 soft red wheat $4.32 (6.50/bu)
3 lb crimson clover $3.30
15 lb winter pea $7.50
5 lb vetch $7.50
Drill $15 + Seed $22.60= $37.60
Follow wheat seeded (date 7-17-11)
Approx 4 lb brown Mid-rib forage sorghum, 1 lb Grazing turnips, 1 lb Ethiopian cabbage, 20 bin run oats for bulk, 1.5 lb radish, 1 lb crimson clover, 3 lb h. vetch, and 2 lb sunflower. Cost = 33.00/ac + 15.00 drill and $10.50 burndown (1 pt 2, 4-D+1 pt glyphosate)No fertilizer was applied following wheat in 2011.
Wheat costs:
Seed & planting 75 lb/ac($12/bu) =$15 + $15
18-46-0 Fertilizer =$60
100#Nsplit application =$68
Harvest =$30
Total Cost of Production =$188
Wheat Yield 60bu/ac x $6.50/bu =$390
Profit =$202 for land and profit
The cc planted following wheat gave us about 30 cow days/ac in 2010 and about 40 days so far in 2011 and ’12. This is w/o using polywire and moving daily. Cattle have spent a good bit of time grazing this year but we have had some wet fields and have wasted some that could have been utilized if the ground had been dry or frozen.
Inputs Corn: 18-46-30 +200 pel lime fall Beans: 18-46-30+200 pel lime Herb 1 pre and 1 post 1 pre w/residual and 1 post
25 N w/planter+60 sidedress
August 18, 2011, our area and lots of others were hit with high winds and large pockets of hail. Most corn fields had at least some down corn. Strangely enough all of our corn was standing straight and tall after the windstorm. The three differences; ours were planted 2.5”-3” deep into a terminated cc and long term no-till (10+ yrs) using 130units N, counting soybean credit.
Write yourself a check for the cover crop! Costs and expenses avoided.
Forty acre example field had five gullies to be filled in 2008.
Fill 5 gullies with skid loader 5 hours @ $50/ hr $250/40 = or $6.25/ ac
Opportunity cost lost 5 hours of planting time $200/hr X 5/40 = $25.00/ac
Five ton soil lost/gullie X $25/T X 5 =$625/40 = $15.63/ac
$25/T was 1.5 X cost of fill gravel
Est. loss of unseen nutrients, OM, humus, soil tilth = $7.80
At least ½ of the value of soil loss ______
Total $54.68
Plus: One to days earlier into field after rain
Control moisture
Suppress weeds
Build soil OM, tilth and structure
Encourage birds
There is and always has been tension between the need for immediate returns and the long term challenge, “Produce enough forever.”
1