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| When I cultivated, I'm fairly sure the "cultivator stress" from inaccurate driving cut the yield as did the weeds in the row that the cultivator couldn't touch. I was using cyclo 400 to spill the beans into the ground then. Not the greatest for spacing or depth control. I did better beans going notill (planting with a real planter, JD 7000) than I ever did with cultivation, but not near like other parts (like Slater) of the county. My tenant gave up on beans and is strip tilling corn on corn. Even with the replants his fields look pretty good this year. My best was 49 bu, when Slater was doing 70 with the same varieties. There might be something to being over the limestone deposits that hurts.
My experience in Story County was that timely cultivation was always difficult and on the average I cultivated half as many times as the crop needed, simply because the rest of the time the ground was too wet late May and early June for cultivation to do any good or to hold up the tractor. Missing early trips with the rotary hoe and often getting only one pass with the cultivator wasn't enough. Should have made three passes with the hoe at 3 day intervals and a couple passes with the cultivator, but rain at the wrong times or too often prevented that more years than not, like this year cultivation would have been impossible.
Kip hasn't said much that I've read or heard that helps others copy his techniques. He has a unique soil, he irrigates by center pivot nearly every day to keep the plants cool, and he adds many magic potions in that spray or with spray rigs for foliar feeding. He plants outrageous numbers of seed too. He treats soybeans like he treats edible beans that he also grows in profusion. He scouts at least once a day and gives them whatever that scouting says is needed, no waiting for CPS to show up. I think he hides essential details behind an "Aw Shucks" not used to public speaking mask.
Gerald J. | |
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Cultivation
