Hey corn growers

[LFmenagerie]

With the rising costs of fuels and the potential to make more money on carbon credits, does this make sense? How many of you are already using no till methods?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0709102323.htm

[rambler]

I personally think the carbon credit thing is a sham, and not worth getting involved in.

Just for an example, if you smoke and are worried about lung cancer, you can't pay someone else to stop smoking & think you are going to be any healthier. Makes no sense. If we need to clean up the world, then we need to clean it up. Not push money around and pretend we are doing something while doing nothing.

The carbon credit money will mostly go to the middle men who handle the transactions. Very little filters down to the farmer. It's fine if you were going to do these practicies anyhow, but certainly not worthwhile to chase after.

Again - my opinion.


I live in an area of the country with all the worst conditions for no-till: Very cold winters, very deep snow pack, very heavy clay soils. Cold springs, lots and lots of water.

I need black soil exposed to the sun & wind to heat up and dry out my soils in spring. Notill is a disaster 'here'. I'm all for it, I wish it would work!!!!

I have done many things to reduce the amount of trips going over the fields, and I don't work up 1/2 my ground in fall any more. However this does not mean I notill - I still work it up in the spring, to dry it out & warm it up. I am farming about 20% more acres than I used to, and I am using slightly less fuel than i used to. So, it is a good idea to do something, I'm all for that and practice that.

'Strip till' might work out some day in my area. This is where you make 10 inch wide strips of worked ground down the rows, leaving the other 20 inches of ground undisturbed. This allows the strip to warm & dry, while most of the ground isn't worked. It is a combination of old & new ways.

Note that for notill to work, a lot of pesticides must be used. Many tree hugger types sem to be on both sides of this issue - they want more notill to save the soil & carbon credits, but they also say we should ban herbicides and other sprays. Can't have it both ways on a practical scale, so I think it's all a scam. Fad of the week type of thing.

Most farmers in the areas south of me in soil types where notill works already are using it, and frankly are quite rabid about it - they have been doing it for 20 years or more, and think everyone should be everywhere. This is not a new idea, has been done for a long time in the places where it works.

--->Paul

[mnn2501]

Carbon credits are a sham, they don't make the environment any cleaner, they just move money around - that may be good for some people, but it doesn't make the air/water/land one bit cleaner

[hintonlady]

I don't know anything about carbon credits and we are in a very thick farm community.

Most guys no till anyway, just to save time. Who can afford to take a tractor and piece of equipment around a field an extra time anyway?

If I am not mistaken I thought there were some farm payment brownie points for no tilling under category of soil conservation.

I can be confused about that though.

[DaleK]

Not sure what happened to give them so much less yield in the no-till. Maybe just not enough experience. Or not suitable land for no-till, although if you REALLY work at it you can make anything work. Got a friend that's 100% no-till on some of the heaviest ground in North America. He ended up tiling it on 10' centres before he made it work though. Around here no-till is very competitive with conventional on yields, at least once you get over the learning curve.

We use a lot of manure, needs to be worked in, so we don't do much no-till corn. Don't plow either though, just disk once, cultivate lightly and plant or chisel plow and plant. Mix of minimum till and no-till for soybeans, 100% no-till for winter wheat. Maybe finally start planting some corn tomorrow if it doesn't rain. Probably will though.

I know some farmers in western Canada who were involved with the carbon credits. Works great when things are going well. Of course as soon as you till you release the carbon and you're back to square one, so most of the agreements for the credits force farmers to give back several years worth of money if they till once. Wet fall and you have to mud the crop off, make lots of ruts? Not much choice, you have to till it to level out the ruts. Ooooooh that'll cost you.

[DaleK]

Saw a study a while back, wish I could find it again. Turns out an acre of corn converts more carbon dioxide to oxygen in a year than an acre of rainforest does, mostly because corn grows so much faster. Go figure.

[crafty2002]

I have heard this no till idea for some time now, and I have never understood it. How do you plant anything without tilling it first??? The ground I am planting my gardens in is hard as a rock unless it's muddy. I was tilling today and dust was flying everywhere.
I am just asking because I always thought you needed to get the ground as fluffy as deep as you could for good root growth.
What am I supposed to do, put the seeds out and a half inch of soft dirt on top.
I'm just totally lost on this one.

[Bearfootfarm]

Originally Posted by crafty2002

I have heard this no till idea for some time now, and I have never understood it. How do you plant anything without tilling it first??? The ground I am planting my gardens in is hard as a rock unless it's muddy. I was tilling today and dust was flying everywhere.
I am just asking because I always thought you needed to get the ground as fluffy as deep as you could for good root growth.
What am I supposed to do, put the seeds out and a half inch of soft dirt on top.
I'm just totally lost on this one.

A "no till" planter uses a disk to cut a narrow furrow in which the seed is dropped, and a press wheel to cover it, so youre only "tilling" EXACTLY where the seeds will go.

"Fluffing" the soil too deeply stops the moisture in the soil from reaching the surface, and the roots dont really need "soft" ground to grow as much as they need that moisture.


http://images.google.com/images?hl=e...+planter&gbv=2

[hintonlady]

Dale,

I would love to know more about the manure use. Been trying to get DH to look into it since I have so many mnure producers here, lol.

do you save on some chemical costs?