[AT] Check planting

Thu Dec 27 16:04:42 PST 2007

Al I think you are right about that.  When I was a boy the limiting factor 
on fertilizer was not to put out so much that the crop was "rank green". 
Anything less than that was ok if you could afford it.
Now days you use as littel as you can get by with.  Some of the small 
farmers still guess at it.  Most use soil samples to make the decision.  I 
know a couple of really big and highly sophisticated farmers.  They have it 
down to a science.  They have yield monitors on their combines that make a 
GPS map of the yeild over the entire field.  Then they soil test to see what 
is going on in the low yield areas.  When the fertilizer goes into the field 
the next year the spreader rig is using the same yield map to adjust the 
amount of fertilizer on the fly.  On some of the rigs the computer is doing 
the steering.  The operator is monitoring the systems and turning the rig 
around at the end of the row.  The same goes for the tractors and the spray 
rigs.   The whole business these days is about maximizing production vs. 
cost and managing risk through crop insurance and contracting the crop. 
It's an entirely different business than it was 50 or even 25 years ago.

Charlie
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Al Jones" <aljones at ncfreedom.net>
To: "'Antique tractor email discussion group'" 
<at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Thursday, December 27, 2007 5:24 PM
Subject: Re: [AT] Check planting

> Dean, a clarification:  The fertilizer and herbicide rates are most
> likely not as high as you think.  Randomly putting down hundreds of
> pounds of fertilizer per acre costs money.  I'd be willing to bet they
> soil sample yearly, and try to match the fertility, and especially soil
> pH to the crop.  In eastern NC, the recommendation is 120-150 lbs. of
> total nitrogen per acre for a crop of corn.  That is not a really big
> amount of fertilizer, Golf courses generally use way more nitrogen than
> a field of corn.  I think the rate for Roundup for weed control is
> around a pint per acre, on our farm I never have used more than a quart
> per acre of anything, and a lot of stuff now you measure out in ounces
> per acre.
>
> Al
>
> -----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 2:41 PM
> To: 'Antique tractor email discussion group'
> Subject: Re: [AT] Check planting
> Today
> that same land produces well over 200 to 250 bushels per acre in good
> years.
> Using much higher seed density with a no-till procedure and heavy
> dosages of
> commercial fertilizer and weed killer. 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 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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