NW Wisconsin | swampbuster - 1/7/2025 10:39
Hi Paul, Any relatives in Marshfield? We have cold and wet soils. Little farther south but same maturity range: 86-92 day corn. Switched to a Yetter strip freshner to plant corn into soybean stubble about 10 years ago. If we don't "nick" our top to start drying, it will be just as wet a week from now. After tickling it with something, a field cultivator or vertical till, it will start drying off in a couple hours. Bean stubble is a piece of cake making spring strips. Corn stalks is the problem child! All corn stalks were chiseled plowed in the fall (chopping corn) and twice with field cultivator in the spring. First pass was just to open it up to start to dry otherwise once would have been enough. Then comes very late 2019 harvest where we did not get a single acre of corn stalks chiseled. Spring of 2020 we tried everything. Chisel plowing wet in the spring is disaster without perfect rains. No-tilled some soybeans, disced some, chiseled some and tried stripping between the old rows with the strip freshner. They were my best beans that fall. I now strip all my soybeans between old corn rows. I do work headlands down with a mulch finisher and small odd shaped fields. So instead of fighting all the residue, I plant between it! Pull a 36" roller after planting for rocks and stalks. Live in the Township of Rock and have taken a Gallenberg rock picker through the worst fields. Sometimes in right conditions, half standing cornstalks can bother the combine head. I would like to try an Excellerator in the fall just to speed things up but our DC (District Conservationist, my wife, retired), hates fall tillage and I get a timeout if I do :))) In the high corn yielding years, it seems like the amount of corn residue is double, add to the stay green of BT and then a pass of fungicide. Frozen by the time combine rolls with no chance to break down by spring planting is right. I like the looks of a Landluvr strip freshner as I would like to compare to the Yetter. Good luck and keep the pics coming.
Negative on the Marshfield.
I would love to try strip till. The problem is most of my ground is tiny irregular shaped fields. Point rows everywhere. By the time a guy gets a field opened up it's a 1/4 done usually...
I was that guy getting laughed at a long time ago trying to no-till.
Now I'd say in this area it's about 50/50.
50/50 corn bean rotation no-till corn all day every day.
The few times I've tried no-tilling corn on corn has turned of alright.
Trying to no-till beans into corn stubble has bit me in the ass more times than I want to remember.
A couple fields went 7-8 years straight. After about year 3 the headlands and shaded edges started taking a noticeable hit. Out in the middle it would be as good or better. Trouble is a quarter of every field was taking a major hit. The slug pressure finally built up to the point I couldn't take it anymore. Corn could grow through it but beans had a large percentage wiped out and couldn't recover.
My belief is that in our specific conditions. Doing fall tillage late like we do (inch or two froze on top or snow on the ground) doesn't effect soil biology near as much as guys down south. Even spring tillage when the ground is still extremely cold with probably some frost still down deep doesn't seem to effect.
I've done a lot of digging. My every other year of tillage compares right alongside long term no-till fields. Far better than the full till every year guys.
I guess I just want 200 bushel corn hanging on 200 bushel corn stalks. Not the 300 plus stalks I'm fighting. Lol
Edited by Old Iron 1/7/2025 19:26
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Bullet proof corn residue
