mhagny - 6/28/2012 10:56
NEILFarmer - 6/28/2012 07:51
mhagny - 6/28/2012 05:49
NEILFarmer - 6/27/2012 21:27 About the sidewall compaction above. I found the strip till to have no sidewall compaction or very little. Basically when i was digging i couldn't find where disc went. Conventional broke apart in halves easily. Any idea? This was all normal deere rubber wheels.
Same soil texture and field history? Same down-pressure? Planted under identical moisture conditions, or was the strip-till slightly drier? (perhaps imperceptibly to us, but the roots know)
[. . . ] Will say this, the strip till was dryer for top 1" then the conventional.
And that is precisely what made the difference. Drier in the top 1" of soil would reduce sidewall smear considerably, thus allowing better rooting. Hence, dramatically larger plants when no significant rain occurred (which would otherwise alleviate sidewall smear).
Now, the trick is to figure out how to dry the soil without doing the tillage (in strips or full-width), and over-wintering cover crops are the key to this for the Corn Belt, including much of the western fringe of the corn-growing areas.
I think your confused. The strip till was drier on top and about the same 2" down. The strip till had no sidewall compaction and now it looks terrible. Conventional had bad sidewall compaction and now looks better. It's the opposite one would expect.
This talk about the drought: Tilled vs. No-till
