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SW MN and Gold Canyon AZ | I drilled for years with a 10 inch 5400 Int drill. Cut pops down to 150000 towards the end.
Key to drilling is not to get them to deep and have a firm seed bed not fluffy. Keep the field cultivator on the shallower side.
Varieties now days have much better emergence scores than years ago. Longer hypocotyles help.
Having a drag behind the drill is key. Allows shallower settings on the drill and better coverage of the seed.
Seed spacing within the row in narrow rows have little to do with yield unless you get huge gaps. But even if you miss one bean in a row you have others in the rows 10 inch away to compensate.
You actually only need about 50000 plants per acre to get full ground coverage as beans will branch big time.
But for best results narrow rows ( under 15 inch ) will canopy much quicker than 30 inch.
If you think of the bean plant as a solar collector, 10 to 15 days earlier shading of the ground gives you more total sunlight collected and as a bonus keeps soil moisture up and the evaporation down keeping the canopy cooler thus cutting down on pod abortion.
Quicker canopy results in less weed escapes and weed germination.
Narrow rows pod higher also allowing better cutting.
In hail situations 30 inch rows tend to fall into the middle of the row thus making the branches harder to pickup with the combine. Drill rows tend to hold each other up thus allowing less header loss.
I could go on and on with the benefits of narrow row beans after raising them for 25 plus years and many different experiences and situations. I will never go to 30 inch rows period..... | |
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Soybean Row Spacing
