I celebrated 4/20 by heading out first thing with the backhoe and pulled some trees on fence lines and fixed some tile while it rained lightly. I like working in the rain and having a coffee mug that looks like it was in a demo derby. Mud and coffee mix on the lip of the mug with treeless fence lines = satisfaction.
When I finished those tasks, I moved on to my next project...putting the custom made planter sprockets on our little 6 row planter for my experiment with strip inter-cropping.
So this past winter I went to the Conservation Tillage Conference in Rochester, MN and saw Bob Recker speak about strip inter cropping and the possible yield increases when the practice is highly managed. I decided that it would be fun to put some of his ideas to work and see what happens this year.
Strip inter cropping is nothing new. For those that don't know, strip inter cropping is the practice of having alternating strips of 2 or more different crops every other 15-30 ft across a field. In my situation I'm interested in growing a 6 row strip of corn next to a 6 row strip of soybeans. The reason for doing this is increased light interception on the outside rows of corn and the yield response that can come from this. What I'm attempting to do is increase the population and fertility of those outside rows to match the increased light input and see if we can ring the bell on yield.
My plan is to plant 6 row strips of corn where the outside 2 rows on each side of the planter drop roughly 44,000 seeds/A, the next inside rows on the right and left side 2 drop about 39,000 seeds/A and the middle 2 rows of strip at a typical drop of 35,000 seeds/A. Since most corn planters are setup to plant the same population across the full width of the planter, a little MacGuyvering was needed to make my idea happen. I had to speed up the seed meters outside to in to achieve this and did so by having some custom sprockets machined with the help of my strip till confidant, Sheldon Stevermer, and B&D Metalworks of Wells, MN. John Deere 7000 planters have standard meter sprockets that have 19 teeth on them so I had them make me a pair of 15 tooth and a pair of 17 tooth sprockets. The smaller size will speed up the outside rows proportionally to our standard setting on the middle two rows that will have a normal 19 tooth sprocket.
I installed the custom sprockets yesterday and hope to test them early this week to see what kind of a drop we're achieving. My plan is to drive about 3.5 MPH when planting so that the seed meters don't spontaneously combust on the outside rows. Doing this on a 30 year old planter will likely present some challenges so we'll see how it goes. With the change in the weather pattern going from famine to feast now, I think we'll have plenty of time to get things dialed in.
I'll be putting my strip inter crop trial on strip tilled corn stalks from last fall. I commend my Dad for having the courage to let me go against everything he's ever done in conventional farming by strip inter cropping into strip tilled corn stalks. This dose of stripping squared would cause most farmers to short circuit and curl up with a blanket underneath a moldboard plow. We're only doing it on 6 acres but I appreciate my Dad giving me the chance to have some fun and hopefully learn some things. More posts to come on this.
Hopefully it drys out this week and we get some corn in the ground. The forecast doesn't look too promising.
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