In this video I talk about no-till and conventional planning and a update on second cutting alfalfa and I talked about the wheat leave your comments let me know I'm just learning to but our goal is to 285 bushel corn
You didn't try no-til, you tried planting corn without tillage. Conventional tillage is a series of bandaid solutions to growing crops, all reactive. No-til is a systems approach to ag setting the soil up to prevent problems before they begin. I used to think exactly the same way you do when we did all kinds of recreational tillage. No-til won't work here was my mindset. Well I was wrong. Are you?
I love recreational tillage, cant take the boy out of the man,, nor the man from his tractor. I,m getting older, I was thinking I might get the biggest caterpillar vibratory compacting roller there is, compact my fields down hard as concrete, so I can spend more time deep tilling, tilling, cultivating, spading etc. hahahahaha, In Golf, there's a saying, "we drive for show, Put for dough" I like driving the ball 600 feet into the woods, way past the flag, cup,I love farm equipment, I cant believe I get paid to run it, its a mechanical love affair my friends. god bless, hope you laughed.. Snooka
This +1. No till works best on the WORST soils. Its not about "not tilling and hoping for the best". That will fail 9 time out of 10 on ALL soils. No till HAS to be used in conjuction with other sustainable practices the most important being the addition of organic layers (ie mulching).
I know some people think that getting less yields the first couple years into no till means it is not working. you need to keep at it build the organic matter up, know how to manage the weeds, insects and residue. Another thing with no-till is you don't spend money on fuel to work the ground, maintaining the equipment to work the ground (like sweeps and discs), yes you have to spend money on herbicides and insecticides but you will still have to spend some money on that even in conventional tillage. My dad made my grandpa who was adamant against it, switch, after 10 or so years he said he doesn't know why he didn't switch sooner and that he'd never go back, dad passed away twelve years ago and someone who tills took over, when they combined the fields left after he passed they said they had never seen such good yields from a no-till field, and because we did not spend money on the tillage we would stand to make more money per acre. we always finished planting before anyone else in our area as well because the ground was manged so well, we were never pressed by snow and cold to get fall tillage done, either.
What kind of cover crops do you use? What types of livestock graze those covers? Are they rotated frequently? Maybe some things to consider. You are losing topsoil, moisture, and nutrients by tilling.
Nice looking crops. You've got your operation figured out on what works best so far, and that's the way to do it. Like others have mentioned climate, soil type, regions, etc all affect which practices to use. As for us in NoDak, we used to have to till everything because of our drill setups. Since getting the no-till system it has out-produced our old practices, even after the first year using it surprisingly. Our lighter soils in the area have benefited from less soil disturbance. We still do some spot tillage here and there, either with fighting grasses, certain noxious weeds, some wet areas, controlled burns, etc..... and of course our Organic fields are all heavily tilled, but that's a completely different beast.
I'm here in Nw ND and the CurseBuster has shown us great relief from sodium movement and accumulations. Much deeper and more prolific root systems too. Our sloughs are going to disappear with this tool. Sloughs have been growing and FHB has become more prevalent ever since no-tilling became so popular.
Yeah I think it depends on a lot of different factors. We do mainly minimum tillage, like just once over with a vertical tillage piece and it's usually ready to plant. We dairy farm, so sometimes we're also disking manure into the soil better before hitting it with the vertical tillage. We're also planning on no-tillling into a field that was in wheat last year and had some coming back that we just had sprayed. It varies a lot.
No till is hard on heavy clay because nutrients don't move much in clay. Strip till and cover crops would work and improve the ground over time. With strip till, you can run a tine and put the fertilizer down in the root zone where it's needed.
That soil looks like perfect candidate for strip till.... my strip till out yields my conventional every year... going to 100% strip till next year but then again I've been doing it for 20 years on several farms and no till the beans... I had 80 bushel no til beans last year and like I said strip till has been as high as 296bpa over last few years.... I highly believe that the less passes over field in spring the better year in year out... I run track tractors and have tracks on grain cart metric tires on combine... you have to make changes to make things work
Very nice corn field and you are correct no till is not for everyone, we custom no till for guys and their a lot of farms locally that won't even try it, which I think no till is a learning experience, each year you have to get better otherwise your going to fall behind.
corn, alfalfa, and wheat all growing nicely and in the same video... impressive, now that is true farming with multiple crop types keeping the land in full year round growing season production. good job Farmer. someone recently said "farming is legalized gambling", I thought about that and decided the statement to be correct. so many things out of the scope of my control have to be right in order to produce a profitable crop. it can be a real heartbreak when the crop sell exceeds the actual cost of producing the crop and then have equipment breakdowns take away all the profits and some leaving the year at a negative. as a small acreage farmer there is never going to be enough profit to consider bank notes on newer equipment. as for renting more land, BTOs [Big Time Operators] in my area, have pushed the rent over 100 dollars an acre and I just can't see the math in that working. at my age I work with the equipment I have because it is paid for and I do not really think I have another 20 years left in me to spend farming in order to recover the cost of changing my current operation to a no-till program. I truly enjoy seeing the younger farmers here on You Tube who have been able to start up their operations with nice equipment and high-tech techniques creating an increased efficiency. I wish for them all the best and many years enjoying the thrills of success in their operations. - Soybean Farmer -
When you say no-till won't work on your farm; you are right. If you were to say that no-till will work on your farm; you'd be right then, too. Because the limiting factor is not the soil, but the person controlling the decisions on the farm. Soil biology principles are not location specific. That's being proven year after year, in state after state, in tropical, subtropical and temperate regions.
Its simply amazing that the worlds millennial old great grass plains and rain forests are able to survive year to year without being mild boarded under.
I'm told that no-till is a process. You have to subsoil to breakup the plow pan, then it takes 3-5 years until you reap the benefit. I just switched this year. But my soil is red shale so it's less compacted. Good video!
Don't take advice from Penn State. You do not need to sub soil. Do it right you will never look back. I farm 800 acres in Bradford co and I till less the 20 acres a year.
there's a tow behind called Massano, you can find it on u tube, rock burring attachment, incredible tool, bury rocks down 24 inches, rototill compost corn stalks, any vegetable matter, manures, etc., aka trash into soil, great for water retention, crops grow like weeds. plant hay, rototill into soil before planting following year, aka green manure
Not much no-till corn in my area. Vertical or a cultivator is used on wheat or bean stubble before hand. I no-till everything but corn. It can be stoney in areas up here in Ontario. You are blessed with some pretty good dirt in your area and that's half the battle. You have a good min-till program and that will work year after year. You get 160 plus corn there is a lot of stalk that has to be dealt with by chopping or tillage. 120 bus corn will not pay at these prices. As you say have a good day.
I live in Maryland and you planted before guys around here did. We've had more rain then you have and corn around here that is up looks a little on the yellow side
You need cover crops for mulch, or chaff or layers of other stuff as mulch covering the top soil. Then you need mycorhizal fungus in it. Plant something with deep root system once after deep plowing, cotton for tropics. This will create room in the soil. Its a whole system and needs to be understood and implemented fully, not partially, to gain benefit. You can always keep supplementing with chemical fertilizers as well.
TeezleySPT yeah I think he doesn't get it. No till increases drainage when done properly. Turn that residue into green chop and you don't have wet soil. Lay it down and you do.
Always fertilize the soil well. Test the soil every year and adjust your fertilizer accordingly. Better fertilize more and prefer to apply a lot of organic manure works best.
If no till will work on ridge tops in the Ozarks it will work anywhere. Trying it one year is not adequate to say it will not work on your farm. It takes several years of winter cover crops and no-tilling to see whether it will work for you or not. You need to contact Dr. Grant Woods about their system where they grow soybeans and have not added chemical fertilizers for over 4 years. Tilling causes damage to your soil and kills earthworms and microbes that are essential for good soil health.
less till is better for the soil, here vegetable farmers use the mouldboard plough and what happens is the crop grows well in the first year after that you pay the price, like chemicals which no longer work as farmers plant to suit weed growth, its all about soil management, crop rotation, sowing green crops to have healthy soil with organisms doing their work, a lot of farmers have lost the plot due to having to make a dollar, remember the US dustbowl which was caused by?
compare your soil, to nearby pastureland. also, no-till is a multi-year effort. that's like trying to learn to be a surgeon in a year and then being mad that your not as good as those who have done in for years.
How much top soil do you gain or lose? Or organic matter is lost out of the soil? That's the question as I understand it, will your beautiful ag land still be beautiful ag land 20, 50, 100, etc years from now. I think production numbers are not the primary metric for what no till is trying to accomplish. In Wichita, 20 min after I wash my car it's dusty, which along with pollen is probably top soil going bye bye.
Some ground is simply unfit to use as farm ground. The only reason that type of ground continues to be farmed is due to government subsidies. The majority of non farmers have no idea of the vast amount of money the government puts into farming. There is no excuse for poor farming practices to continue in this day and age. I firmly believe there should be up to date mandated protocols for farming practices that vary with the soil type and farm location. If the farmer does not follow the mandates then he should not be eligible for subsidiaries.
No till will work every where. I don't do it but. Continuous corn needs tilling. His field looks like it had soybeans last year / trash evidence on the ground. I think planting a cover crop is a waste of time & money. Lets say you get it planted early Oct.. it will emerge a couple inches is all. Cold temps & freezes limit it's Fall growth. Then in Spring, SEMN, you like to be done corn planting at the end of April, covered crop destroyed by then. It may have green up in the Spring is all, what's the benefit???
Definately a pretty stand....I would expect it to be taller,But your northern climate is probably causing the slow growth....The corn that my neighbor planted 4/16 17 is already 40 inches tall, but he will have to deal with super heat in June and July... He will be going full speed to get his drip system going....
some really great comments and very important reminders about the limitations of no-tilling soils. I hope you all go visit www.soilcursebuster.com. read thru some of the pdf's of PPT talks and see why no-till doesn't work everywhere and in fact in more places than where it does. It is about silt movement and occlusion of the soil macropores which result in poor percolation of water and poor gas exchange. Using "targeted tillage" which does not destroy the efforts of root systems and biological communities to build aggregate stability is the key. Write from the website for a free DVD which shows what can be achieved with this approach to tillage.
Every soil type is different.Every farmer is different.Every seed type is different.What a farmer has to do is to know what works for their farm then do it. Yes you have to watch what is new or different but in the end it your farm and you get to do what best on your farm.Great looking crops on your farm,your hard work can be seen in your crops and livestock.
Have you tried applying compost extracts and mixes of womcastimgs, Biochar, milk, and molasses to your soils and crops? You can’t expect no till to produce great results while still applying chemical products to it. There’s a process happening in our soils that you can’t keep treating with antibiotics. No-till works when applied correctly. There’s more to it than rotating crops. Grazing correctly at the proper times is key also. It will work in any soil. 1 year is not going to replenish a sterilized environment with the right microbes especially if you’re spraying chemicals and synthetic fertilizers. Yields don’t mean squat when you’re pumping high cost inputs into your crops, there’s a more profitable way to farm without burning the diesel and spending loads on products. Soil care and management is what farmers are responsible for and Americans are falling behind the rest of the world as far as sustainability goes. We have to learn these new practices if we want lasting topsoil
Your corn looks great but your soil looks dead. If you like spending lots of money on inputs, crusted/compacted soil and leached/lost fertilizer then continue by all means. If you had an open mind to continue with no-till and cover crops you might be able to farm profitably one day. Good luck with tillage, crusty soils and wasted fertility.
You sure beat my no till stand. It feels good to have corn up when others are still planting. I was sidedressing when the others were planting. It would help if you used GDUs to track the crop for those of us in weird parts of the world. Agphd has a nice phone app. I saw no till emerge at 180 gdus rather than 120 you see in conventional till. Here our CEC is around 35 with OM in 1.8% range. It's heavy soil that needs OM build up. Keep doing what's working. I think early planting is step #1.
As an interested observer of these distinctively different alternative methods of farming, mostly combinable, crops. I think both sides of the discussion are broadly correct if only because there has always been "horses for courses". There is little doubt in my mind that achieving a successful and profitable crop is a multi-factorial business, otherwise surely everyone would follow the same plan to obtain good results and we all know that doesn't work because, not least of all, we do not experience the same weather and weather patterns everywhere. To try to contribute usefully to this discussion I would make the following relevant point which can perhaps be summed up in the following phrase "If you haven't spent it (£/$) you haven't got to earn it". It seems to me that a great deal of time and money is being spent (time, fuel, wearing parts, breakdowns etc.) preparing seedbeds to plant crops into, sometimes to excess. I also think that with farms becoming ever larger, more specialised and spread out geographically together with skilled labour becoming scarce this means that this seedbed production is often being "forced" (more passes, bigger heavier equipment, working soils before they are dry enough, etc) and perhaps producing less than ideal results as well. Timeliness has also suffered in my opinion as well which in turn has had an impact on crop performance. I also don't think ultra high yields is absolutely everything to be looking for. Clearly a satisfactory yield together with a reasonable sale price obviously matters to everyone as all farms have overhead costs to meet (eg rent, power costs, depreciation costs, etc, etc.) as well as the direct costs attributable to growing any particular crop. However if a method of planting crops such as no till for some types of crops offers for some an opportunity to grow crops more profitably due to reduced costs then it demands serious consideration and investigation. Clearly some soils are much more naturally fertile than others, some are more akin to trying to farm a sandy beach whist others are more like a clay brick pit! Some land has such a dry climate and little in the way of rainfall when its is actually needed that is almost desert-like from the point of view of growing crops whilst other areas are just the reverse. Obviously also things like topography, aspect and many other soil factors have a huge bearing on the issue However it does neither side of this discussion any credit whatsoever to emphatically condemn the other side's point of view and experience and is totally negative and not welcome.
You can't honestly expect no-till to work after 1 year. To get the benefits, it will take years. Not because it does not work, because it takes time for your soils to repair all the damage from years of tilling. Using multi-species cover crops and always having something in the soil will do wonders for your land. Those other guys might be getting slightly smaller yields than you, but you are probably spending more money on fertilizer and other chemicals. Not to mention time/labor. Look up Dave Brant.
That's why I prefer no till without Roundup. It gives me an excuse to fire up the dozer and pull the roller chopper around. In 20 years you would be amazed the difference it has made here.
Ok. You just proved how little you know. Nitrogen is only fixed through bacteria infection on root nodules. Only legume roots can be infected. Tillage destroys the soil structure and destroys earthworm pops. You have to have earthworms if you want free fertilizer from your organic material.
Jns27j nitrogen fixation can be done both by rhizobium bacteria on roots of legumes but there are also free living nitrogen fixing bacteria called associative diazatrophs that will fix up to 80 lbs N per year for corn, wheat, etc. Tillage stimulates copiotrophic bacteria that mineralize and make nutrients available but consume carbon sources to do so (soil cannibalizes itself). Tillage also destroys mycorhizeal fungi hyphea that can bring water, phos, and other nutrients to your plant.
It's the lesser of two evils approach...tillage decimates biology but glyphosate is also a biocide. I don't care about organic but organic no till with constant ground cover and a living root in the ground at all times with livestock in the rotation would be about as good as an environment for biology as one could achieve
No till is a regional thing. What ever works on ones soil. As long as one can control weeds I have no problem with no till. Seen a few guys just let weeds go but that's a whole other tangent lol. Guys we're doin no till beans in our area but weed resistance is gettin so bad guys had to switch back to tillage. U ot to try strip till I think u would be happy with it. What is ur average corn yield over the whole farm?
Jake Ziegler question what have you seen weeds do? Do we have definitive yield loss numbers because from what I see it's not worth buying herbicide or tilling just to get rid of a few weeds that stand no chance of beating a crop like wheat or corn.
No-till agriculture may not bring hoped-for boost in global crop yields In October 2014 a study done in University of California - Davis summarized that no-till farming appears to hold promise for boosting crop yields only in dry regions, not in the cool, moist areas of the world. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141023100727.htm Studies have repeatedly found that no-till farming alone can reduce yields. No till garlic for example experienced a 32-44% bulb loss (Bratsch et al. 2005). In a meta-analysis of more than 5000 paired yield observations from field trials around the world, in regions with moist climates and sufficient precipitation, no-till farming reduced yields by 6 to 9 percent compared to conventional tillage (5.7% Pittelkow et. al.) No-till alone reduced crop yields by 9.9%. Together with crop rotation and residue retention, no-till lowered yields by 2.5%. environmentalresearchweb.org/cws/article/news/59037 doi.org/10.1016/j.fcr.2015.07.020 In a global meta-analysis of no-till relative to conventional tillage yields using 678 studies, no-till reduced yields by 5.1% across 50 crops and 6005 paired observations, no-till performed best under rainfed conditions in dry climates, matching conventional tillage yields on average, and when used in combination with the other two conservation measures of crop rotation and residue retention, as much as 7.3% higher yield could be seen over conventional farming.
As long as you're sure and you've got your mind made up that that is the only way you can do it there by God you stick with it and stop by the nurse to the world with it
Watch Ray Archuleta & if you can sit through his whole demonstration with the rain machine, slake test, and porocity test and not see anything convincing, I wouldn't recommend anyone argue with you.
Hi i am form NewZealand looking at yourfarm you have no soil structure ground is compacted cracked it Will dry out very soon you spend far to much money on synthetic everything i think you Will end up with more money in your pocket if you change the way you think ie getting the soil structure working and stop killing it i think you needhelp in this field good luck Robbie
I have been studying no till, one year is not enough. is your corn roundup ready? roundup is killing the digestive system of every American. by increasing the candida in our gut. notill seems to be the way to to eliminate weed killer down the road.
Why wouldn't it work on your spread? Just saying it repetitively isn't an argument. The ultimate goal is to adopt Regenerative Agriculture practices as a package and 'no till' is just one element of that process; it involves heaps more and maybe you should look for more of the other benefits which will improve your bottom line. E.g., Dr Johnson gets exceptional yields (better than forests) but he's a highly-trained Scientist with all the bells and whistles.
I have worked ground all my life and have given No-Till a good try from 2013 till now and can tell you like you no-till just don't work in my ground at all. If you go 5 miles east of us no-till works every year no problems but ours it just don't work. All the big guys run turbo tills 3 or 4 passes over the field before they plant so there not no-tilling. No-Till works in some ground and others it don't work at all, And it don't work for me ! Bandit
Bandit farmer I totally agree with you there's some guys give me a hard time but the yields we get off this Farm outweigh the cost of working it. Thanks for the comment and have a great evening
I've come to believe that no-till weather it works or not all depends on the soil type, In any ground that if you work it wet it turn to concrete no-till is not going to work unless conditions are perfect and who has perfect ground to plant ? You got to know your soils and what works and what don't and remember that every year. It never hurts to try something new if you think it stands a chance of working , You never know until you try. But when you try and it don't work (several years) then you can say you gave it an honest try and go back to what you know works for sure. That's the great thing about farming, Its always changing ! Bandit
well said there Bandit, I posted above, I think you might like reading it, not about how, when, why to or not to till,, hahaha its about yields, I get incredible ones, a couple posts above,, have a great year, let me know what you think,, took a life to learn what I know. Snooka
I think every farmer should try different methods of tilling ground. I see soybeans planted in corn stubble so thick its still there when they combine the beans. Corn stubble dust coming out the back of the combine. Sometimes I think no till is a way to hurry up and get done planting crops. Not necessarily done right but just done. There are good farmers and poor farmers, those that care about the ground and taking care of it and those that only are after the money. No till isn't for everyone.
I came just to hear what you had to say.. the other side of the coin. You need to take 2.5 hrs and watch Gabe Brown talk (type gabe Brown in RU-vid and you'll see the one 2.5 hr video). You are completely missing the point and for the sake of your farms future and the people you feed you should take the time and watch it. Please.
Your right about ground temps and bugs but your missing the big picture. And I'm sure your no-till neighbors are not yielding a 100 bu less. That doesn't even make sense. Also corn out of ground in 4 days??? How shallow are you planting??? I farm on ground 1,500' elevation with CEC's in the 4-8 range north of I 80 right I 86 and I'll tell no-till works. With that said I do think their is place for tillage. When you fill your creating massive amounts of erosion, OM degradation and the destruction of beneficial insects.
You need to watch Gabe Browns videos, You are making excuses, no till will work anywhere, you just need to educate yourself about how to do it. There is much more you need to know besides just no-till, there are cover crops to consider. Yes you might get less per acre yield wise but if you are doing it right your inputs are drastically cut and you will be more profitable and you are not killing the land.
I would never tell a man something about his own land or soil. The OP knows what he is dealing with. Just as a matter of logic and language, however, the statement "No-till won't work here" is hugely unsupportable. "No-till" is a developing agri-science in its infancy. New developments are deepening our understanding of the carbon cycle every year. Saying that No-Till won't work here makes about as much sense as saying that "all cars have titanium wheels" because a Bonneville speed car is the only vehicle you have ever seen. It may be perfectly reasonable to say that the no-till practices you have tried, or that those in your area have employed, are inferior to conventional tillage in the short run. Anything more is really quite silly.
Nice excuse. It takes years to mend your soil back from years of conventional farming. No til takes knowledge and understanding of how everything works naturally. You know deep down that no til is better. It’s better for the ground, the country and the planet. Just say that you rather not do no til cause you won’t make as much money. If you said that I would have more respect for what you saying.
