[AT] Check planting

Thu Dec 27 12:26:49 PST 2007

Dean,

I am curious - do you recall if you check-planted all your' corn every year
or would you say check plant it all one year and then not check it the next
and so forth?  If there were years when you didn't check plant or at least
say some fields that you didn't I am wondering if you might recall how the
yields of checked v/s unchecked compared.  I seem to remember the yields
being close but in thinking about it now I don't see how that could be.

Dudley

-----Original Message-----
From: at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com
[mailto:at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com]On Behalf Of Dean Van Peursem
Sent: Thursday, December 27, 2007 10:29 AM
To: 'Antique tractor email discussion group'
Subject: Re: [AT] Check planting

Len,

I have the same recollection of row spacing 40 or 42". We used check
planting in the 1940's and 1950's. I don't have a good recollection of how
many  kernels were dropped per hill but I would guess two to three. We
cultivated both ways, the third time, hillers (disc blades) were used to
hill the dirt around the roots to add additional stability as the corn grew
taller.   Check planting was used to control ground weeds and to keep more
of the upper soil surface closed to contain moisture until the corn got tall
enough to provide shade. Cultivating was never done at a 45 degree angle as
a simple geometry calculation will determine that the spacing isn't the same
at 45 degrees.  We were dry land farmers and we had to be a bit careful on
how many stalks per acre there were due to limited rainfall.

As I recall in the mid 50's our corn crop yield was in the 50 - 60 bushel
per acre average for dry land farming in NW IA using only farm manure for
fertilizer and/or also crop rotation.  I recall running a 10 acre 4H plot in
the mid 50's, the best 10 acres of the whole farm, where the corn seeds were
drilled at a much higher rate on 40 or 42" rows and then side dressed with
liquid nitrogen as a test plot. The results were 80 bushels per acre which
was much higher than the typical local average. My father said I had grown
the best crop of foxtail he had ever seen. :-)

Dean A. Van Peursem
Snohomish, WA 98290

"He who makes decisions in haste repents at his leisure."

www.deerelegacy.com

http://members.cox.net/classicweb/email.htm

-----Original Message-----
From: at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com
[mailto:at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com] On Behalf Of Len Rugen
Sent: Thursday, December 27, 2007 9:55 AM
To: Antique tractor email discussion group
Subject: Re: [AT] Check planting

I've never seen check planted corn, I've seen the equipment and used some of
it in "drill" mode.

I'd suspect the rows were way wider than 30", I seem to remember 42" as the
number, but CRS...

What was "good" yield in the years after the dust bowl?  I'd say 40 bu/acre
might have been good in the 40's.  I would guess that there was a lot of
open pollenated seed planted.  We can still get that locally and it will do
OK.  I've planted 2nd gen hybrid (IE feed corn) for food plots and had good
looking corn.  I've planted open polliated corn as well.

There was more than one seed per hill, the planter still "drilled" at
whatever rate, but the seed accumulated  until the knot on the wire tripped
it.  What commercial fertilizer was often applied with the planter
attachment.  Manure was used as far as it went.  After picking, cows were
turned in and hay even fed on the field for fertilizer (and weed seed...)

Remember, they often picked this stuff by hand.

Now there usually isn't anything over the field after the planter until the
combine.

Len Rugen
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