Against the advice of just about every person I talked to about it, I tried some skip row corn this year. This is my first real attempt at dryland corn. Planted 2 and skipped one on 30" rows. Planted about the 15th of June hoping to get it past the big heat of the summer and catch some rains in August and September. Yes no-tillers, I know the ground is super clean. I don't like it either. We had 20 bu. wheat on this field last summer, spread composted cattle manure on it, and chisled it last winter. So not much cover left. But here is the deal: it is clean of weeds, I could push the loose dry dirt out of the way when it was 100F during planting and get the seed into the moisture, and I don't have $40 worth of chemicals in it. I got a really good stand considering the conditions.

I can't get insurance on it because we don't have enough history of dryland corn in our area for a T-yield. So I figure the skip row is my insurance. Hoping it will work as a bank of moisture to tap into if needed. I am shooting for 40 bu or so. I would be thrilled with 50 bu. I was trying for 9.5k to 10k per acre population, but I think I got about 8.7k actual stand count. Very thin I know. But IF we are lucky we get about 8 to 10 inches of rain from May to Sept. 55% of the years though we get below average rainfall.