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| We are presently picking a pivot of corn that has been notill for 6 yrs now, talk about disappointing, worse than last yr. We know we had a water promblem with the pivot that didnt help any, that promblem is solved for next yr, there is a new pivot standing there allready for next yr. This COC, farm is predominatley clay and gumbo, its a tuff farm to say the least. Had it grid sampled last yr, PH came back at an avg of 6.2- 6.3, phos was low in spots, but overall wasnt bad at all, called for sulfur and zinc, put all that on variable rate according to grid. Put on 185 lbs of 32% coulter inected on, 5 gal of starter and another 25 lbs of 28% on with the RU. Planted next to the old row in standing stalks, got down to dirt nice clean path, wind blew alot of the trash back over the row and slow emergence on some rows. With the trash promblem cost us population, planted32500 ended up with 28k, was scouted all year and did what they said, did everything right and still aint yielding sh!t. Best this farm has ever done is 202, the first year we farmed it and was disked up cause of being ridgetilled and being on 36" rows, every yr since has been worse and worse, rent keeps going up, cant afford this anymore, gotta get that 190-200 avg or it dont pay. Do I dare go back to conventional with all that clay/gumbo? Pioneer dealer and scout want me to try the turbotill method try to break the trash down and keep notilling because of the soil types. Give me you thoughts.
On another note on one of our good farms, we used to ridgetill, last 2 years it has been disked has been the best corn we have ever raised on that farm. Yield monitor on that farm is running very consistent 240-299. Best we ever had with ridgetill was 210, pretty sure that farm on whole field avg is gonna be 240 plus. Has it just been the years or does the tillage realy pay? Alot of the big farmers have gone back to tillage and say they are seeing enuff yield response to pay for it, thats what Im seeing after the last 2 years also. I am all COC, I dont care for beans. My theory is if something happens with the corn I can still cut it for silage or feed cattle, beans I got nothing.
Edited by ahay68979 11/5/2009 21:03
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Questioning sticking with notill!
