Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Rural Living Corn Planting Time In Kentucky

To be serious, we work , and invest a fair amount to attempt to build up the soils.

That's called good stewardship. You have to take care of the land if you want it to take care of you.

Indeed James, the same with cattle.

This. It's an investment that pays off.

The soil disturbance thing is pretty interesting to me. Here it's the norm to do three passes with a cultivator, sometimes also ploughing. The fields are a size where wind erosion isn't really a thing, so a lot of this is to fight weeds, even moreso when they'll make glyphosate illegal next year. We have a lot of sugar beets, so keeping all the soil together without mulching or keeping the weeds out if you mulch will be harder.

Boomer, here in my part of the world, no-till is most used method, followed by minimum till. On my land here, there are 3 crops grown in two years. The first year, corn will be planted, harvested in the late summer and early fall. Wheat is then planted, either my no-tilling into the corn stubble, or by discing the corn stalks in, and drilling the wheat in. The wheat will be harvested in June, and then soybeans are no-till planted. It is not unusual to see both a combine, and a planter in the field at the same time, as it is important to get the soybeans planted as soon as possible. For a few years, there were people seeding the soybeans before wheat harvest, by using a plane to drop the beans into the wheat. That method was just dependent on too many things in order for it to work, and was soon abandoned.

Not all land is good for wheat, as wheat likes a well drained soil. On the land that wheat is not grown on, a corn-soybean rotation is used. It's rare here to see corn and beans grown without being rotated. A lot of the soil here is prone to erosion, and that's why no-till is so popular. Of course, no-till is very dependent on chemicals, especially glysophate. The use of Roundup (glysophate) is widespread, and it would be interesting to see what would happen without it.

James, do you get deep frost in the soil, or frost at all?

Richard, I'm assuming you're talking about the ground freezing and staying that way most of the winter. The answer would be no. Some years, we'll have a cold spell with below freezing temps for maybe a week or so. Then the ground will freeze, sometimes deep enough to freeze up a water line if it hasn't been put in deep enough. But, the weather here just doesn't stay cold enough the entire winter for it to remain frozen all winter long, especially with the way it's changed over the course of the past 20 years or so.

The record here for the lowest temp is -22, and I've seen -20, and lots of cold in the minus 10 to 15 range. But, it just doesn't stay that way very long. We'll have lots of mornings in the winter when the overnight temp is cold enough to freeze the gound hard enough to allow you to run equipment over it without making ruts. But, it's usually thaw out by mid-day, and get soft again.

I know that farmers in your area can put anhydrous down in the fall, and the frozen ground will hold it in. We can't do that here.

I am told frost loosens soil, and keeps it from wearing down as fast.

I'm thinking that one of the ideas behind plowing in the fall was to let the freeze thaw cycles loosen the ground and discing in the spring would smooth it down.
Of course plowing brings new seeds to the surface also I guess.

Speaking of loosening the soil (tilth) does anyone here use Gypsum to improve the tilth/water absorption of their soil?

I've heard of it Louis. That's all.

James, that is really interesting. I've heard of two harvests from the field in America, but our vegetation periods are just too short for that. When growing wheat twice in a row was still a thing here, you'd see people seeding right behind the combine, too, though. However, that's just not profitable anymore.

The whole frost loosening thing is actually still used by many farmers here, although we don't do it anymore since the winters barely get cold enough for any significant frost to loosen the soil and if you plow too late or when it's too wet you do more harm than good with plowing. Of course the best way to loosen up your soil is to not compact it in the first place, which is why we rarely if ever work a field when it's still wet out.

shiddtt man.........

still snowin' & winds outta the NW at 37 mph........

plant what ?

Snowing a bit here today.

Too bloody cold to plant corn in Iowa!