Growing corn non GMO style?

yup, Ive looked at them. You can see them used in the Vids on U Tubes, (When we Farmed with Horses).

My 421 IHC planter has some of the appratus for CW.

When I was still farming, both my Dad and myself grew a lot of corn. We did plant hybrid varieties, but we didnt use any weed killers. We cultivated 2-3 times and the corn shaded the ground after that. ( not every week or 2 )

There is no reason you cant do that unless you dont have a cultivator for a tractor. And persosnally, I wouldnt grow 4-5 acres of anything I couldnt get a tractor on.

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If you can break your land at the right time for your area.
Work you land level and smooth with what ever you got, disc, spike or spring tooth harrow ect.
Find a planter and plant your corn, with the older corn you'll have to make sure you have the right size of seed plate in relation to the kernel size of your corn.
If you got a section harrow your field the same way you planted it a few days after you plant it. You can harrow it till it gets 4" to 6" tall. Some folks used to harrow at a right angle to the way you plant, also.
You need a cultivator to match your planter. Example, 4 row planter, you can use a 4,2,or 1 row cultivator if your using a one row tractor. It don't work as well planting with 2 row planter, and plowing with a 4 row cultivator unless you got it perfectly spaced. Cultivate before you need too.
Keep on cultivating till you can't drive over your corn without knocking it over, it'll reach a point when it'll break instead a bend.
In my neck of the woods it'll need some fertilizer when or right after you plant it, and some nitrogen when you lay it by.
As FB said, a single horse or mule can be used after you can't drive over it with a tractor. I've plowed corn with a one horse turn plow when it had ears on it, running out middles. It made nice big ears.
It's alot of work, but it can be done.

last years corn on Jul 4. sprayed with atrazine and prowl at about 3 inches tall. http://sefsufficient.com/drill/jul4corn.JPG

Corn 3 years ago sprayed the same way but was roundup ready and had glyphosate mixed in as well http://sefsufficient.com/drill/corn5.jpg

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Yeah I used to use it a fair bit. Made it easy to see where you'd already sprayed with the bright yellow. Stained the sprayer pretty good.

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Wow! Thanks for all the info! I should have said what kind of equipment I have. A 3020 John Deere tractor, a chisel plow, a 8 feet wide tiller, and a few of the foot wide garden tillers. That is it.

I can do this way-(Feel free to throw in advice or two) Chisel plow it first, then till it on the same day or wait a week?, till it again the day before planting(my neighbor plants corn for me after he plants his) I can garden till and hoe the rows. I guess that I will have about 4 acres of corn total. I have hoed 6+ acres of strawberries for a farmer in one summer, so I know whats its like.
I have a strong dislike for chemicals, so that is not an option. But the owner of the feedmill had told me about using corn gluten meal as a weed preventive. Any thoughts?

Farmerboy16 ...

I don't really have any real advice for you other than to say that you can do it! It sounds like you are ready to work hard and have a basic idea of what you're getting yourself into (because you hoed 6 acres of strawberries!).

I would think if you could pick up a 4 row cultivator or so for behind your 3020 (and could set your tires right) that would be a plus. We have quite a few neighbors raising organic corn and beans these days, so I see the cultivators going through the field. Their fields aren't as clean as the RR fields, but they produce pretty well and they get a nice premium for their organic grains (in fact one farmer attributes the organics for being able to quit the town job and stay home).

I'd love to see and hear about your progress this summer as this is something I've thought about doing.

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Instead of the gluten or the tilling right before planting, I would invest in a harrow or drag or rotary hoe and use that right before planting.

Without chemicals, the key, the only way to success, is to kill off the weed flushes before you actually see green weeds.

Dad farmed into the 1980s without herbicides, I did a lot of the work for him, so I have been there, on a bigger scale than you are by quite a bit.

Today we like to plant corn as soon as possible in our cold climates, before the weeds even come around. Without chemicals, this means a lot lot of weeds! You need to wait a tad longer, let the weeds sprout, and then work the ground very shallow. This kills that flush of weeds, and does not pull very many new seeds to the surface for yet another weed flush...

It is very nice to look back and see a silver/white look to the ground, all the weed sprouts being pulled up.

Until the corn starts putting on its 6th leaf, you don't want to see any geen weeds getting even 1/2 as tall as the corn. It will rob yields.

You need to be killing the weeds before you see them.

When they are sprouting.......

You can be fairly tough on the corn when it is breaking the surface, a harrow or rotary hoe will rough things up and scare you, but the corn will come through fine, and the fine weeds will get wrecked.

I will keep emphasizing, if you see a patch of green weeds out in the filed, you lost yield, a person needs to be very proactive on killing the weeds when the corn is young, before you really see them.

Corn grows pretty fast to 4 leaves. Then it appears to stop growing, and sit for a week or 2. Actually it is feeding its roots and growing point, which remains below the surface of the ground all this time. This is the time when weeds overwhelm the corn, weeds grow tall like crazy at this time.

If the corn starts losing sunlight to the weeds, it tries to grow taller than the weeds around it. But this totally messes up the growth pattern of the corn, and it will never yield as good as it could have. That young little 4-5 leaf corn needs to sit there and pack away food reserves, weed free at this time.

This is a key to growing good yielding corn in a northern climate. There is a big difference on how to get this done in the north, vs in the south. Weed patterns are very different. I appreciate the ideas that come from warmer climates, but they would fail miserably up here in the cold.

Kill those weeds early. And often.

I'm not a fan of the spring chisel plowing, again up here in a northern climate a poor fall tillage is way better than a good spring heavy tillage pass. But you are where you are in this, and likely need to do so.

I would chisel plow, field cultivate, harrow right before planting, harrow right as you see 10% of the corn poking out, a d cultivate every week after whether you see weeds or not. Since you don't have a field cultivator or disk, the tiller will work. They tend to make the ground a little too fluffy for corn, but it will work. I would not use it twice....

Now, every region is different, every soil is different, so if a local person tells you something different, go with their idea, likely better for your soil/ climate/ situation!

I realize you have small acres, and doing this for fun as much as anything, so being perfect is not needed here. Anything you do will work out, and be part of the learning curve. Just trying to give you the good ideas, pick from there.

How will you fertilize, corn will remove 70 lbs of N, 35 lbs of P, 25 lbs of K, and 8 lbs of sulphur per 100 bu of corn you harvest. You need to replenish your soil to keep the soil alive and healthy.

Paul

Rambler, Ive kept a record of all that youve said concerning the needs/practices of corn for several years. You and Dalek and a couple others kept a corn post I started some 2yrs ago going with great exacting information.
I wish, like the livestock, we could have forums individual to the general crops that farmers raise, so as to go back, this time of year, and re read whats been said throuout the year without haveing to sift through who knows how many posts in a years time to find out a certain something you or me or someone else said that was pertinate to growing corn, or whatever, Its good for me, and I know it would be great for young farmers/homesteaders.

Want a suggestion most modern farmers seem to forget. My people have been growing corn for hundreds of years, and heres a simple suggestion. Plant Squash inside your corn field, and when your corn stalks get high enough plant beans up them also. You wont be able to get a tractor in te field but you will get more yeild, you will get less bugs, and the weeds will be drowned out by the squash.

This is not for the modern machines, but the crop yeild is alot larger, plus if you dont want the squash you can either feed it to the birds, donate it to a school or sell it. The beans let them dry with the corn.... All three crops together feed off one another...

enjoy

I plant "truckers favorite" dent corn for my chickens every year. No "round up", or other chemicals...EVER. Simply cultivate your ground and plant. Hoe or run a tiller through the rows and around the stalks until they are high enough to block out weeds. Some weeds will still grow, not a problem the variety is very hardy and has grown to strong maturity even when I have been lapse in hoeing/cultivating.

Yup. BUT That would be ALOT of squash and beans on 4 acres.

AND, Youd have ALOT of bare ground between the hills, which Im guessing would be around 3ft each way. That would have to be cultivated until the squash made big leaves enough to shade the previously cultivated ground.

No one crop does real exceptional, but you get 3 crops, if you want all 3 it works well. You need to plant far less corn per acre, so you are looking at far less corn yield.

This works better in southern regions, up north our short growing season makes it tougher.

All three crops remove P and K, so unless you are returning enough manure, you are still depleting your soils. N is the only nutrient that can be manufactured by legumes - the beans.

Harvest is more difficult, trying to get some crop out without damaging the others.

It does work, but very different deal. Can be fun to work with, certainly.

I play around with such combo crops too - I use a few acres of oats, mix in a plow down blend of clover and alfalfa. Put in turnips for the cattle to graze in fall. Put in some peas, they seem to kick in N just when the oats needs it. Sure is a 'busy' field, but can swath and combine the oats, bale the straw, graze everything that regrows a month later, and perhaps have a bit of N added to the soil for next years crops.

Paul

Way too big a field for the bean and squash thing. Just harvesting would be an incredible task. I think the 'three sisters' method works best in 'gardens' of 50x50 or so, not larger field crop land.

I would disc the field,wait a few days and field cultivate it the day of or the day before planting.Drag it about four days after planting.Cultivate it when you can see the rows clearly.Cultivate it about every ten days until it is about two and a half feet tall and shading the row.You can pick up a rear mount four row cultivator from the local iron buyer cheap.The weeds are hurting your yield if they are big enough to hoe by hand.

Thanks again everyone. I had asked one of my bosses(I work at two dairy farm, one almost everyday, the other one once a week) if he could spread manure on my field, and he said that he would do it, and will not charge me for that. Woot! Should I till it in on the same day it was spread or wait for how long? Also what variety of corn can I plant? I want to get the right kind for my area.

The best is to already have the ground plowed before spreading the manure. Then just discing it into the ground that will be planted. BY putting it on top and plowing it down, your putting it way past what the plants can reach for when they are needing it to grow. It will leach itself even lower

ON THE OTHER HAND, I saw a vid where roots actively search out nuitrants in the soil, and will? Find it if its there. That would make for a deeper root system. Make a more relisiant plant to wind, and make it lower where more water would be found in a drouth.

Might also make the roots not spread oout as much, they going down instead of out. AND IF the ones that go out get cultivated off, Its the deeper ones that is finding the nuitrants anyway.

By discing it in AFTER plowing, the roots should not go so deep as they have all the nuitrants they need near the surface. This will make a broder base root system for the plant, WHICH should make a bigger foot to brace itself against the wind with, BUT, would require shallow cultivation so as to not cut through the expanding sideways root system.

Your call. Good luck

It is good to work fresh manure into the soil within 4 hours or so, helps keep the N in the ground. As it dries on top, some of the N is evaporating into the air. So yes, it is vst to work it in.

As mentioned, if you flip it in deep, the young seeds will take a bit to get to it. But generally, you save more nutrients by working the manure in, than what the young corn plants lose time on.

We bigger farmers have rules and guidelines we need to follow, about injecting manure or working it in so we don't lose the nutrients.

Paul

Roots aren't capable of actively searching out nutrients. But, in practice, it sort of looks that way. Plants send out roots in all directions, those that reach more nutrients grow faster. The roots that reach water grow faster. In a dry year, roots will be deeper than a wet year, because the shallow roots didn't get the moisture they need, but the deeper ones did. So the deeper roots will grow even more. When you cultivate corn, side roots are often "pruned back". That sets them back a bit, while the undisturbed roots continue to increase in growth.