NEMO | dhfarmboy1066 - 5/10/2026 20:14
Anybody tried Relaying cropping? Any crop into Wheat? I read where in China it was a common practice to plant Cotton in to standing wheat. They were planting cotton 3 to 4 weeks before harvesting wheat, they were using planting patterns to have clear space for cotton.
I have relay cropped soybeans into wheat a few times.
Some relay crop growers promote planting the beans early and having a row crop head or something on a draper to push the beans over when you harvest the wheat.
I intend to plant the beans 2 or 3 weeks before we harvest the wheat. This way we get a jump start on the beans, but not have the beans so tall as to worry about cutting them off or completely knocking them down with the wheat harvest.
Controlled traffic pattern is nice if you can achieve that. I bought a 24 row 30 inch mounted planter (60 feet) to put on a 2 track tractor on 120" spacing. Sprayer is also on 120" tire spacing and has a 120 foot boom, so half the time the planting tractor is on the sprayer track.
Now I have a 60 foot drill and diverted wheat on 4 rows (2 behind each tire track) so it creates a 22.5 inch tram line. The idea is that the sprayer and planter passes do not knock down wheat.
The 60 foot drill is on 7.5 inch spacing. So last fall we adjusted half the row units and slid them over to create a 10 inch gap in the wheat where the 30 inch beans will be planted. The jury is still out on how well this will work as we have not planted the beans yet.
I tried the 22.5 inch tram lines the year before on a limited number of acres and it definitely helped.
Also last summer I set the combine up with special back tires for wheat harvest. The front duals on the combine fit down the 30 inch beans rows for wheat harvest, but the back tires are between the duals. So I bought special tires and rims to have the back tire follow the inside dual and not knock down any beans.
Also I purchased a stripper head thinking this could help with wheat harvest and not end up cutting the tops of the beans with a sickle if they got to tall. The stripper did leave the beans leaves chewed up but not cut when we got later into wheat harvest and taller beans.
So I have committed a lot of time and money into equipment to try and make relaying beans into wheat work.
In an ideal situation I would like to have wheat on 1/3 of my acres and try to get 4 crops in 3 years. 1/3 corn, 1/3 beans, 1/3 wheat with relay beans.
Current labor and logistics makes this almost impossible but it is a goal. One of the most unforeseen limiting factors is the wheat harvest and trucking. Trying to harvest several hundred acres of high yielding wheat and get it hauled to the best market by the end of summer when they stop taking the wheat has been a challenge. (More bins and hauling in winter would cure some of that)
The timing of planting the relay beans can be a challenge. But lately my goal is to get all the other corn and beans planted before we plant the relays.
Several years ago (10+) I just dropped the 16 row 30 inch planter into standing wheat (that was broadcasted the previous fall) about this time of year in May before the wheat headed out. Harvested the wheat at an angle so not to take out complete rows of soybeans. The wheat yielded 90% of our regular wheat that year. The relay beans yielded 90% of our regular beans that year.
Since then I have not been able to get the relay crop idea out of my head. So the last 3 or 4 years I've pursued it with a greater passion.
Double crops here can be a real crap shoot (10 bushel or 50 bushel). Just getting beans in 2 or 3 weeks earlier can provide a more reliable 30 to 40 bushel yield environment. So I feel my equipment purchases and upgrades will eventually pay off... I hope!
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Relay Cropping
