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NEILFarmer

Posted 2/24/2017 08:31 (#5859772)
Subject: 2016 Strip Cropping Report

Morris, IL

So i've never gotten around to it, had lot of guys asking over email figured i need to report back. In 2016 we put a 128 acre field into 12 row strips of corn and soybeans. Way it worked with all the dirt work and such we did it was our last planted corn, first planted soybeans, on mothers day weekend. Oh what a screw up that was, anyone northern illinois know that was sure way to get a poor stand. This field we had cultivated and it turned up like powder, we tore it up started over. In hindsight we probably should have rotary hoed, waited and seen what came up, then spotted in but it worked out.

Ended up replanting around 5-20. It went good from then on. Planted about 50k plants outside row and rest at our more normal 34k. I used RTK to plant all the corn then switched planter and planted beans. Headlands were all soybeans as well. Sidedress NH3 June 10th with just a straight rate. Planter put down 30lb. with starter as well. Came back on the corn and sprayed Headline amp which paid pretty good, should have done the soybeans as well as it would have. Plan was to Y drop V10 or bit latter but still didn't have my drops finished and then i was spraying fungicide and didn't get it on till about 8/1. I only ran it on the outside rows as i could see they were running out of gas. Probably should have just sat at home as i think it was just too late but it didn't cost me much just to give that extra row a shot and good time to see my Y drops worked. Combined the corn with our 6 row, beans we rented neighbors 30' platform and it worked very well considering it was being pushed by a 33 year old 7720, did 2.7-3.2 mph all day, but wasn't able to get row by row on bean yields with this setup.

Fields were split until this year with a fence row we removed. West field corn did 258, East field did 272. West side had a bit of COC and is in a build fertility program, East field was all soybeans last year and has better fertility/PH but not as good drainage. Did a row by row check in the East field came up with this. Outside pair of rows did 390, second pair of rows did 270, third pair of rows did 243, and the inside 6 rows did 235. We had mono crop fields running 230-260 this year, no question in my mind if we had bit better timing with planter this field would have done 250 mono crop but you can see we only did 235 (center 6 rows), i blame little late planting and bit of wind damage. I have the field stripped and ready to plant for 2017 and two years of very high fertilizer and PH fixed on West field so hope we have better luck this year

Soybeans there was basically no difference between East and West fields. Did 55 bushel, most of the field was beans on beans, that seemed to cost 5 bushel as when i crossed over the old field line it easily changed 5+ bushel every time. Won't have that problem again, that said i think with all the rain we had last year and disease affected that more then normal. I also didn't spray fungicide on entire field. I finished an 80 down the road and sprayed few passes that did 5+ bushel better with Priaxor and Hero. Seems i could have got withing 5 bushel of mono crop fields planted basically same day right down the road that went 70.

One very interesting thing i can't quite figure out i'm hoping maybe agtalk will have answer. As said above we tore out an old fence row, was about 8-10' wide been there 100+ years. We spring chiseled it and field cultivated on two different angles crossing the fence row. The corn that we planted on the fence rows was nothing special, about field average, and it was right on top of it. Beans were better near fence row. East field strips go 57.5-58-54-53.5, West field is even more dramatic. So i guess the cultivator moved soil from fence row, surprised it moved that far as i was only on 5-10 degree angle. What caused this to happen, anyone seen anything like it?

All in all it wasn't that bad with good RTK and little extra thought in everything. 12 row strips make it pretty easy. 6 row could get interested, i'm thinking i'd like to move that way but with 12 row planter and 22' bean platform it's not as easy. Looked at a local 653A yesterday but was priced to high for condition it was in.

Edited by NEILFarmer 2/24/2017 14:23