[AT] Check planting

[Francis Robinson]

--On Thursday, December 27, 2007 10:00 AM -0500 charlie hill 
<chill8 at suddenlink.net> wrote:

> Thanks Jack,   I guess I need to see a picture of it or something.
> The way I have it figured if you check plant in 30 inch rows then the
> spacing in the row between plants would also have to be 30".  That would
> give you a plant population of only about 6970 plants per acre.  All corn
> that I know of is either single or double cross, meaning it has either
> one  or two ears per stalk.  (Seems like I've heard something about
> triple cross  corn but I've never seen any.)
> I just don't understand how you could have a reasonable yield that way.
>
> Don't misunderstand.  I'm not saying it was a bad way to do it.  I'm just
> trying to understand the process.  Did you maybe plant more than one
> stalk  per "check" if I can call it that?  Maybe per "hill" would be a
> better way  to say it.  I can see where the extra room would maybe make
> the stalks grow  better but that doesn't always translate into bigger,
> fuller ears.   Also  allowing the extra sunlight into the crop canopy
> (because of the wide  spacing) would seem to me to cause a problem with
> late season weeds.
>
> This same topic was discussed here a few years ago.  I didn't understand
> the  concept then and just decided to explore it a bit more this time.
> I'm not  trying to turn it  into an arguement.  Just want to get a clear
> mental  picture of what the field looked like.
>
> Charlie
>

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^



	Your right on your thoughts Charlie, That's why we don't do it anymore... 
;-)
	It would be a terrible system today with the high producing hybrids we 
have now and the pesticides we have. Back then it did produce better than 
drilled weedy corn since uncontrolled weeds especially morning glory vines 
etc. could totally overtake a crop and there was no way to stop them. Huge 
weeds could also make a crop almost impossible to harvest. Now it is 
possible to have a horribly weed infested field and spray it once and clean 
it almost totally up. Keep in mind also that corn that was drilled back in 
those days was often spaced as much as a foot apart in 42" rows so if the 
corn was "hill dropped" in checks it was often about the same population as 
drilled corn. I mentioned "hill dropping" the other day. There were little 
gates inside of some planter boots that held the corn back and drop all of 
them at once in the hill. Some of the older John Deere planter manuals 
showed cut-away drawings of the gates and the mechanisms.



--
"farmer"


Francis Robinson
Central Indiana, USA
Robinson at svs.net