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| Hi all. I'd like to continue sharing some of my no-till experiences as I learn, and gain new knowledge from others. If you are a no-till extremist and will only be skimming the thread making assumptions that I am discusted with no-till, please, please hit the back button and go on about your life.
Ok, today, sunday the 5th of april, I took a drive and some pictures of the progress (or not so progress) of how my no-till crops are coming along. I made several new to me observations. I'll try to relate them to you so you can help correct me if I'm not seeing things right.
This is a new field for us that we came into last fall. It was planted in mid/late october sometime. This is "Tubbs '06" wheat, which is a soft white winter wheat. I sprayed the fescue with 2 quarts glyphosate a week prior to planting. And just prior to that we put 3 ton of lime on and the field require at least 2 more ton sometime soon. This picture is on the east end of this narrow 12 acre field. The wheat looks great here. Tall and green, healthy looking IMO. It really should'nt though as it is where the oak leaves fall and it gets morning shade. Pic looking sort of east toward the end of field.
Pic from same spot, but looking westward.
I drove up the driveway a hunnerd yards or so and took this looking east.
Same spot looking westward. Amazing difference as everythng is the same except the shade and leaf fall.
I stepped in a few more steps and took this view from that same basic spot in the field. What I did was since I had some Tubbs left and needed to change to a new variety the next day, I made a few rounds around the field after cutting the rate some over the top of the main planting. Here's the difference in appearance.
I did'nt think to take a spray bottle of water with me, but here's a plant of the wheat from the weaker area. I noticed there was a higher than normal amount of grubs in the soil, but also a lot of earth worms. I wonder if planting the wheat too deep in a fescue field might cause too much stem contact with the decaying grass crown. ?? What do you think?
Ok, moving along, here's my no-tilled wheat on wheat. I've posted a few threads about it recently. Here's one of planting it. http://talk.newagtalk.com/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=69713&mid=4933... And here's one of the first app. of liquid fert early spring. Note my comments about the best crop of wheat. ? http://talk.newagtalk.com/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=79682&posts=25... Well, I may have jumped the gun a bit on the best crop of wheat. It is very slow growing right now for some reason. After reading some about the calcium importance fighting off pathogens, I think that may have something to do with it.
This is "Goetse"(sp) wheat, which is a nonvernalizing soft white winter wheat.
Same spot but closer in. I planted over a gopher hill. *gasp*.......... But look at the difference in health. Amazing. !
Check this out. This is looking west and the field was planted north/south. I am looking across the rows of wheat here. However those are very defined 18" fescue row spacings. Sporatically throughout the field, there are large areas that this pattern shows up very well.
A closer view of this problem. Notice the wheat between the fescue rows is allmost gowing backards. It seemed like it was taller and healthier a couple weeks ago. However the wheat on top of the fescue rows is doing fairly well. Why? I sure would like to know. This is the second crop after the fescue was killed out. The first crop was spring wheat last year which was vertical tilled and planted with a GP drill with the turbo coulters up front. Then this wheat crop was planted with a JD 1590, no other tillage.
Again, this view is looking across the wheat rows, but with the old fescue rows.
And lastly, here is a pic of an area that is extremely wet. Last spring we nearly stuck the tractor and drill in this spot so I took the finish disk over the are once just to cut the tops of the ruts off. 2 months ago, I would have said.............."no-till dont work here" because the wheat in this spot, though wetter than most crops can live in, was looking leaps and bounds ahead of the no-tilled stuff. Now,........I think the wet feet is showing up and the no-till is catching up. Notice you cannot see the fescue row pattern here in this spot. ????
Thanks for taking the time to look and read. I hope that if you have a comment on something you notice I may improve upon, or a recomendation to get the wheat growing more healthily, you'll let me know. I really want............actually need, to make this work. I am hoping to plant my soybeans and grain corn in a minimm tillage manner, but if I cant pull this no-till wheat crop off, it may signal disaster for the no-till world in this area. Too many people watching every move I make. Most hoping to see a failure both for condoning their practices and to save face after the severe heckling they gave me last fall.
I have a new tissue sample taken on the wehat on wheat. Results should be here any day. I'm trying to foliar feed it some calcium and micros.
Thanks.
Edited by Old Pokey 6/1/2009 08:33
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No-till woes and wonderment(s)...with pictures.
