Going out in the field for some early harvest results in some of the driest areas of the state. Jason Russell farms near the Linn-Jones County line, where his rain gauge has measured just under four inches of precipitation this growing season. With harvest results so far, not his own but neighbors, ranging from 90 to 190 bushels per acre and everywhere in between he says there are a couple of keys it looks like at least in regard to plant health.
“Yeah there’s two things at play,” Russell said. “One obviously is the soil type, if you’ve got good, heavy, deep soil with lots of water holding capacity it’s going to be better. The other is tile, I’ve got some fields we’ve got some grass waterways in and there’s actually a tile line on each side of the waterway – we call them mains. The corn near those mains looks amazing so I think any kind of underground water movement is sub-irrigating that corn.”
In regard to soil health, fertility management, and tillage practices, Russell said there’s been a considerable amount of variation.
“There are some conventional fields that look great and will have a good yield.,” Russell said. “I think they’ve just been doing everything right and have good fertility, they got their roots down into moisture. I’ve also seen some no-till fields that are really good too, but I’ve also seen both practices tillage wise have some really ugly crops. There’s a lot of factors as always and I think if you have some compaction no-till might not have been the best option. Our no-till looks really good, and we’ve been no-tilling for many years, so I think our compaction has been alleviated by now.”
Planter set-up could play a role also.
