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Thumb of Michigan | I'm farming in what was Saginaw Bay (part of Lake Huron) in the not so distant past. Drainage isn't optional here- you either tile it or the guy who buys the farm from the bank tiles it after your foreclosure. So, I'm partial to tile. Mostley because I've had the experiance of farming very wet farms in the past and didn't care for it much.
Thats obviously not the same all over, so the qualified answer to tile is that I don't know in your case.
If water management is in fact the limiting factor to greater yields, then there are many ways to get it tiled. Rented or not. "Here" most land lords understand the importance of drainage and will at least listen to a proposal. If you have to be the one convincing the land lord that tile will benefit, it can be an uphill battle. If excess water isn't a common problem, I'm betting that hog manure is the number 2 best way to get to yields close to the better soils.
Brandon brings up a very good point, though. That is, what bushels are the easiest to get? With that said, I remember listening to a very progressive farmer from Thamesville, Ont give quite an animated speech about the precision farming equipment he and his brother had built. This was back when variable rates and yield maps were brand new. Couldn't buy the stuff, so the went at building stuff on the kitchen table in the winter months. He had some very interesting yield map overlays that told a quite a story about yields on variable ground. The first was a soils map, and the next overlay was the yield potential of corn (based on university info) for each soil type. from 200 bu down to 80 caught most of it. So, the question was of the audience: what do I do with my inputs to achieve maximum profits on each soil type? Of course, most of the responses were that cutting inputs back on the poor stuff was warranted. Which is what he originally had thought as well. He then laid an actual multi year yield map over the soil types map. On the 200 bu rated ground, he was getting 220 bu. A 10% increase over rated potential rated yield. On the 150 bu rated ground, he was doing 175- doing better as that was close to a 15% bump over potential. On the 80 bu ground he was hitting around 125 bu- almost a 40% increase over potential. Changing the current inputs and practices on the poor ground was the worst thing he could do, he was nailing that one. He was (as suggested) falling down somewhere on the 200 bu ground. The question was then how much was it costing him to get the dramatic yields on the poorer rated stuff- and surprisingly, none of it had a lot to do with big changes in annual inputs. Fert and seed were important, but down the list a ways compared to things like drainage and tillage responses.
Thamesville, Ont is even farther away from Illinois than I am I'm thinking, but I think some of the concepts are valid in many locations.
Edited by pat-michigan 10/19/2012 10:00
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making 200bpa ground out of 150bpa ground....
