Interplantings with corn?

[fantasymaker]

My farm runs on corn. I hate it cause Im building kias by hand.But for certain reasons Im stuck with having to plant a feild full of feild corn.I cant even interrupt the grain yield much
It also rags me off that the soil and sun go unused so much of the year.So what Can I plant with my corn? or slightly behind it. Im stuck with roundup as weed control. So I have thought of interplanting RR Alfalfa. it would handle it if I had to spray after planting.
Any Ideas for interplanting?

[Rocky Fields]

Hey.

I wouldn't interplant anything with corn...corn's a heavy feeder.

You should be rotating with a nitrogen building cover crop.

[travlnusa]

Down south they are using airplanes to "spray" winter wheat onto the corn corp that is still in the gound. IF I recall correctly, they are "aero-seeding" 45 days before the corn comes off.

[momanto]

Prowl Is A Herbicide That Can Be Used With Corn.

Saw A Jug Recently At A Hardware Store. Looked It Up To See If It Would Do What We Need, And Not Harm What We Want To Keep.

It Wouldnt Work For Use As We Have Bahia Pastures For Cattle. Fence Line And Old Root Piles With Weeds And Isolated Infestation Of Lantana Plants. Prowl Is Harmful To Fish And Birds. But Sounds Great For Weeds Growing With The Corn.

I would think you might could plant something like pole beans and maybe some cucumbers after your corn is about waist high. This would give the vines something to grow on. Maybe plant some pinto beans and at the end of the summer when everything is drying up you could walk through and pick dry beans for storage.

This is something I've wanted to try as the native americans did it similar to this. They would plant their corn in hills. Then after the corn came up they would plant pole beans to grow on the cornstalk and then plant squash to shade the soil around the base of the cornstalk. They called the setup the "Three Sisters".

[Jolly]

Peas.

The old-timers planted stuff like purplehulls, and let the runners use the cornstalks.

[uncle Will in In.]

Fantisizer, You were born 100 years too late.
In olden days farmers used a one row grain drill to plant wheat or rye between the corn rows. The drill was pulled by your trustiest old horse. There are still many of these sitting around in old machinery collections.
They tried sowing wheat or rye for a few years with an airplane, but much of the seed lodged in the corn stalks and much of it didn't germinate for lack of soil contact and moisture at the right time. They gave up on that idea. If you have a good stand of chickweed in your field, it will stay rather short and make winter pasture.
You can drill rye as soon as you harvest the corn and use it as pasture in the spring or for a green manure crop.
You can windrow the stalks and round bale them. The round bales of stalks are great to roll out where there is a windbreak for cattle that stay outside all winter. I'd string out a couple bales every day. The old cows picked out what they wanted to eat and slept on what was left. They pooped all over the old stalks which made them rot fast in the spring.

[Jolly]

OTOH.....ever seen the plots where the FFA guys try to win the contest about who can grow the most corn on one acre?

200 bushel yields are common....every square inch is used.

[Ramblin Wreck]

We grew pole beans in our corn, but as noted above, you had to pour on the fertilizer. Still, we seemed to have good yields of both crops.

[primal1]

Originally Posted by r.h. in okla.

I would think you might could plant something like pole beans and maybe some cucumbers after your corn is about waist high. This would give the vines something to grow on. Maybe plant some pinto beans and at the end of the summer when everything is drying up you could walk through and pick dry beans for storage.

This is something I've wanted to try as the native americans did it similar to this. They would plant their corn in hills. Then after the corn came up they would plant pole beans to grow on the cornstalk and then plant squash to shade the soil around the base of the cornstalk. They called the setup the "Three Sisters".

Organic farmers are doing that around here, i've heard that among other reasons nitrogen gets locked into the roots of the beans when it dies so by the next spring and the bean roots break down the nitrogen it released instead of just washed away.

[Highground]

Years ago we planted other seeds along with the corn. Too many helicopters searching now days.

[Dirtslinger]

In Peru there was amaranth (or quinoa) and beans interplanted. Corn there was shorter than here though.
I've interplanted corn with annual morning glories, supposed to benefit corn (not the weedy perennial ones) so I would bet runner beans or other climbing plants would do great.
Plant vines once the corn has established to at least 6" or they take over.

[Terri]

My husbands uncle used to turn the cattle onto the field after harvest. They would eat any grass, chew up the cornstalks, and eat hay. Instead of planting a second crop, he let cattle get any good out of it.

I have thought of double-cropping in my garden. They trouble is, the season in Kansas is too short for a full second crop, and anything I planted while the corn was in the field would have to be planted early enought that it would be shaded AND compete for nutrients! If I could plant it just a few weeks before harvest that would be good, but then the second crop has not enough time.

The CLOSEST I could figure was corn, followed by winter wheat the same year, but then the winter wheat would be harvested in the end of June so that would leave July, August, and September for a last crop. And, here in Kansas, it is 100 degrees in those months and it will NOT rain! The seedlings would die!

The Chinese and Japanese got around the problem by starting their crop land with spring greens while they started raising rice seedlings in a separate, small area. After the greens were taken off the fields and sold in town, the land was plowed and flooded and the bundles of rice seedlings were transplanted. (From the book Farmers of 40 Centuries)

BUT!, The Japanese and Chinese would have had a couple of full-time workers on a single acre of land. Just think of the labor involved in transplanting 20,000 odd corn seedlings! In todays market, the work of a couple of people for a week full-time is not worth the value of an acre of grain.

I gave it some thought but I came up dry. My growing season is too short unless I start the second planting of seeds in the hottest, dryest time of year. Which is possible in the garden if I grow the shortest-season sweet corn instead of field corn, and water often, but I canNOT figure it out on a larger scale.

[fantasymaker]

Terri have you seen the thread on maximizing corn production by seperating the parts? Sounds like we are both thiking the same things Im going to have to go studdy the old cornbinders some.

[Aintlifegrand]

Here squash or pumpkins and black eye peas are interplanted with corn.Every other row. I have also seen where fish oil was put in the hole ( much like the dyaa when a pish head went in each hole..now I have seen pish oil only). This seemed to help grow large yeilds of all three, corn, BE peas, squach (or pumkins)

[zealot]

Originally Posted by Rocky Fields

Hey.

I wouldn't interplant anything with corn...corn's a heavy feeder.

You should be rotating with a nitrogen building cover crop.

Corn has always been interplanted with pole beans, a nitrogen building crop.

[Thoughthound]

Clover will fix nitrogen, provide a live mulch and grazing opportunities.

However, like any plant, it will compete for moisture.

I doubt it would stand up to Roundup.

[bachelorb]

Originally Posted by Rocky Fields

Hey.

I wouldn't interplant anything with corn...corn's a heavy feeder.

You should be rotating with a nitrogen building cover crop.

I have to agree here. You can follow with ryegrass ans oats and alfalfa during your rotations. I only plant a few acres, but I rotate it and grow grass and legumes behind it.

[rambler]

Originally Posted by Rocky Fields

Hey.

I wouldn't interplant anything with corn...corn's a heavy feeder.

You should be rotating with a nitrogen building cover crop.

Same here. Up here in MN the growing season is too short, we plant corn as soon as it's possible to get in the field, and often finish up harvest on frozen ground. No chance for anything else to be planted or harvested.

If you have a good 29-36,000 plants per acre to maximise your corn yeild, then there is no sunlight left over for beans or anything else to grow. If you are spacing your corn too far apart to allow other things to grow, I'd say you are wasting time & effort by not going for the best corn crop you can go for.

Corn just does not share well with other crops. It uses a lot of fertilizer & moisture, and grows very tall to shade the ground. Getting the combine or picker through to harvest will run down any other crop you have planted.

Concentrate on growing good corn, best you can, and then plant something else the next year, a legume like a pea, clover, or bean is a great choice to replentish some N in the ground.

Perhaps it works differently in other climates tho, where you can have a much longer growing season. I have no experience with that.

--->Paul

[agmantoo]

I have followed this discussion with interest. Seems no one wants to return any thing to the soil. If you rape the acreage how long do you think it will continue to produce?