Help------Corn Farmers

DaleK · #41 09/26/07, 08:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PD-Riverman

FarmerBoyBill or whom ever, here is my set-up. I use a 2 row cultivator with 4 hiller blades set-up on 36". The hiller blade's almost touch each other in the center, I also use 3 12" sweeps adjusted so they move any untouched dirt from the hillers to the side of the raised bed made by the hiller's. I have 2 Cole planters attached to the back of the cultivators. I feel all the fertilizer that is spread by the spreader is moved into the raised beds, so barely any is left in the middle of the row's for the weeds. When I sling out the granuliar(?)nitrogen I go behind it with the cultivators with 24" sweeps set to pull it from the middles and push it closer to the corn. Does this sound like it will work?? Thanks!

Depends how much nitrogen you're putting on and how much the sweeps are actually pushing towards the corn. Sounds like a good way to burn the corn to me if you're getting too much nitrogen too close to the plants, and it doesn't sound like youv'e got a good way to control how much is getting there or how close it's getting.

We're running a 6R30 White planter with a dual liquid fertilizer system, we put 6 gallons/acre (average) of starter in with the seed and 30 (average again) of 32% UAN for nitrogen 10" from the row and 3" deep. Experiment a bit with the distance and depth on the N but 10x3 seems to be working nicely.

Stephen in SOKY · #42 09/26/07, 08:59 PM

You might watch the equipment/estate/farm auctions and pick up a side dresser. I've got a 2 row made from the fertilizer unit from a Ford 309 planter mounted on an old set of Ford 2 row cultivators powered by a John Blue wheel. I dress corn when it brushes the tractor axles. I close 1 side & feed pumpkins and melons just before they vine. I do broadcast balanced fertilizer & disk in prior to planting as well. Side dressers are cheap compared to the job they'll do.

DaleK · #43 09/27/07, 08:02 AM

If you were moving that much dirt around to try to push nitrogen closer to the corn, there's no way the nitrogen was being applied uniformly. You just can't get tillage to work uniformly over a field, particularly with sweeps that wide. I would say that's a big part of the problem you saw with yield varying over the rows.

Sammy · #44 09/27/07, 10:24 AM

Rye makes a very good cover crop and plow down green manure.