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King City, Mo | My random thoughts that are worth what your paying for them....lol
What are the base saturation %?
anything under 65% ca add high ca lime raise up to low 70's
if cec is in the teen's or low 20's i'm assuming yours is ---- mg needs to be 10-12% if Mg is higher then that it needs to come down by having ca atleast 65% then add sulfate sulfur. (When we get down in the low cec soils that are sandy we like to see higher Mg levels.)
4-8% K base would make me happy.
On your bean yields.....have you tried playing with any boron? I'm a fan of the 20# the acre of borax.
With the low OM soils i would focus on getting the manure on them and not removing residue. Slow process but not the end of the world. Less SOM mean less water holding and less nutrient cycling so beat you on a dry year as less water holding for plants.
Do your beans get tall and lodge with the history of manure? If so maybe try lower populations like 110-130k if yoube been planting 160-180K.
Till the soil to your hearts content if you want and no till what fields you want.
I would play with a Soil Penetrometer, See if you have some compaction layers that the beans aren't liking. You take care of business and get cattle fed, concrete poured, hay put up, and silage cut, manure hauled, and prob push it sometimes and are out on the fields when maybe we should park it but if we park it we won't get it done so you finish. Not saying it bad as you gotta keep pace as busy as you are. Maybe there is some compaction as beans like loose dirt.
If there is get a ripper on a big tractor and go to town, if not all it took to see if it is is a ranger ride driving around out in the field with the penetrometer... i'm sure you could get help if the cooler was in the back of the ranger. ;)
The other thing on bean yields here is august rain...if we don't get the aug rain it doesn't matter how much damn fertilizer or fertility you have or if you bought the latest seed with the latest treatment your screwed.
Other thing seems to me that some guys are just corn growers and they can grow good corn and other guys have fits with corn and get along better with soybeans....maybe your just a good iowa corn and one of the better cattlemen?
https://www.agriculturesolutions.com/soil-penetrometer-measure-soil-...
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soil tests -what next
