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Northern Indiana | We are very new to it but enjoying the experimentation here.
Some cereal rye that was planted after corn, worked the stalks lightly with a disk, then spread potash and rye, then used a roller to “work” it in. Some cereal rye following beans that was spread and then worked in with a light disk pass. We then strip tilled corn into that after killing the rye. We also just made strips in the same field without cover crops to get a feel for the difference side by side. This fall we spread rye on cornstalks and didn’t do anything, looking for more of a true no-till practice, hopefully we get a decent stand that way. Can’t find my pictures of the rye before it was killed or of the corn coming up in it.
Picture 1 - beans into killed cover crops
Picture 2 - strip tilling into killed rye
Picture 3 - strip till no rye
Picture 4 - harvesting corn planted into rye strips
Going to keep playing with it. Need to fine tune making strips in the rye. We do like that idea, nice cover between the rows and good weed suppression. There was a noticeable difference of the bare strips and the rye strips when we came in to plant as far as weed pressure. Didn’t love the beans into rye, planted about 3.5-3.8mph to maintain good depth. We feel like hydraulic downforce would help a lot over our springs in the rye. Definitely increased management and studies I’ve found are relatively inconclusive on long term O.M. gains so if it’s just a different way of doing things for the sake of being different I don’t know that it’ll stick here. Beans had a yield drag in the rye, ~6 bushels, we had blocks of rye in a couple fields to get a good yield comparison. Pretty significant when you can only plant 60% as fast and give up yield and pay for the rye. Chemical costs were pretty even, the biggest plus was a significant difference in water hemp and pigweed pressure in the beans where we had rye vs where we didnt. That’s the biggest plus we saw. The corn was consistent in and out of the rye.
Edited by 4730farmer 1/26/2026 18:52
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Want to see CC pics and ideas
