Better Farming - January 2017

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48 AteToday? Thank a Farmer. Better Farming January 2017
CROPS: THELYNCH FILE
looking at tillage practices in more
depth, there were reasons for the
results. These reasons will be dis-
cussed in a future article.
Fifth, we relearned lessons about
weed control. If you spray early with
the right product and get rain in the
correct timeframe, the weed control
works. If weeds emerge and you wait
to see if the weeds will die, they won’t.
And if the big weeds get too big they
will be very hard to kill.
Some growers experienced first-
hand the dreaded glyphosate-resistant
fleabane. I think more growers will
plan programs to control this weed in
all crops in the coming growing
season.
Sixth, we witnessed the benefits of
crop rotation in 2016. Second year
corn on heavier soils did not yield as
well as rotated corn. Overall, crops
grown under a good rotation yielded
better than monoculture crops. These
rotated crops proved more successful
at surviving the dry weather. There
were, however, some exceptions. For
example, continuous corn on silt
loam soil typically yielded quite well.
Seventh, if you planted into tough
soils in 2016, you paid a yield price.
Sometimes you can get away with
planting in these conditions if there is
a lot of rain after planting and
emergence. But when the rain did not
come last year, seed that was planted
into tough soil did not grow very
well.
We witnessed the benefits of crop rotation in 2016.