61 Better Farming | May 2024 Ontario Ag Marketplace It is spring on the calendar, and farmers are gearing up for another planting and growing season. So how successful do you think you are going to be? As good as last year, better than last year, or somewhere in between. “Not planning for success is planning for failure”. In previous articles I have talked about “GROWING MORE WITH LESS.” This not only takes planning, it takes micro-managing. Looking at every detail of the growing cycle of a plant. A seed dealer once told me that a seed has maximum potential, when it is still in the bag as it does when it’s an unplanted seed. Everything that we as farmers do or don’t do for that plant takes away the seeds ability to grow to its maximum potential. This past summer of 2023, we had a three acre test field where we grew corn. We did several different tests in this field in association with a local university, drone companies, and companies writing data logarithm’s; as related to predicting plant growth and plant yields. In this field we took visual notes of the crop growing. Some 60 per cent of the plants (Six out of 10 plants) had two full size cobs growing. The standing population was 35.6K. This was an incredible crop, but I was not totally impressed. I was shown by Mother Nature that we can do better. There was one stock of corn at the end of the field that had five full length cobs on it. This was the same seed as the rest of the field that only grew one or two cobs. At this time, a five cob cropping yield average would be considered unattainable. However, Mother Nature has shown that it is possible. We have not hit our maximum potential yet. Micro-managing the corn plant/crops, to boost our yields, is what this article is about. I just gave you a goal to achieve, but how do we do this. The first thing you have to do is treat the seed with the respect that nature gave it, and to believe that the seed has a dormant living brain waiting inside, to be woken up with moisture. It will take a few days after planting for the seed to start to grow and find food. So micromanage that thought. The seed needs a warm soil. It needs good seed to soil contact. It will then get the moisture it needs to activate the seed’s brain. When it sprouts it will then look for sun energy, and we will see the first leaves of that plant come out of the ground. That plant is only going to be as good at reaching its growth potential as the roots ability to feed it. We spend much time trying to build equipment that puts the seed into the ground. We spend very little time creating the seed zone appropriate to growing the plant. If we don’t work the soil in the root zone that allows the root to grow and spread out, this hinders the roots’ ability to grow to its full potential. “You can’t grow a big root in the space of a golf ball.” Moving forward we see that the root spreads out from the seed with primary roots, then secondary roots off of the primary, and hairlets off of the secondary. These vary from a few, to massive in structure. This is when you will get double cobs on a plant. As high as 40 per cent of these secondary roots and hairlets are formed and working together take up the nutrients you placed in the soil earlier. At the five leaf stage, the cob has already been created and the length and girth size has been determined. More importantly the number of cobs and the need of more cobs has also been determined and the second cob is under development. If the plant sees that the food supply is substantial then the third, fourth or fifth cob could be created. As each of those consecutive leaves grow, currently an unlikely event. We haven’t figured what triggers this to happen yet. How do we supply the perfect growing environment for that seed? Micro-management says we need a worked zone six inches wide and up to five plus inches deep, for the root to easily grow in a light, fluffy, well worked and crumbled soil. This will give us good seed to soil contact. We will need moisture, not wet soil, to give the seed the moisture it needs to start to grow. We need the warmth of the sun to warm soil for dehydration, and drying of the seed bed trench. The seed zone needs to be in condition to have fast germination, in this close to perfect environment. Your sustainability of high yields, start at the roots of your plant. Build on the positive, let’s do this right and the rest will show sustainability at the end of the year. Step 1 is … trying, tying sustainability to the roots of our labour. Morley Wallace Morley J. Wallace Owner of GPS Ontario Grow More with Less for Sustainable Farming morley@gpsontario.ca 613-489-2932 GROW MORE WITH LESS by MORLEY WALLACE GPS Ontario TRYING, TYING SUSTAINABILITY TO THE ROOTS OF OUR LABOUR “Grow More with Les Advanced Better Management Practice’s (A + +
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