Farmer Porn

[Susquatch]

That's a bit like asking what is the proper lathe to use.
Well it depends on lots of different factors but corn (as should all crops) is planted based on target plant population per acre/hectare/ft/etc and so it depends on what row spacing is used that determines the spacing between plants. But to give you a ball park idea (for Alberta anyhow) target plant populations are around 32000/acre and 30" row spacing is fairly common. So plants end up being roughly 5" apart in the rows.

A question I've always wanted to ask an agronomist is about emergence. One of my fields is clay. If I get a heavy rain after planting, my dirt will crust over and emergence really suffers with lots of plants dying underground before they ever reach the sun.

Some farmers tell me this doesn't matter because the seed companies deliberately develop seed that will accomodate this emergence issue. Do you know what kind of emergence percentage they target?

 

[DPittman]

A question I've always wanted to ask an agronomist is about emergence. One of my fields is clay. If I get a heavy rain after planting, my dirt will crust over and emergence really suffers with lots of plants dying underground before they ever reach the sun.

Some farmers tell me this doesn't matter because the seed companies deliberately develop seed that will accomodate this emergence issue. Do you know what kind of emergence percentage they target?

I'm not sure what your question is but I'll can tell that if you are seeing that plants do not ever emerge in your field that is very important and must be addressed. You may not be able to prevent the issue occurring but your ending plant population needs to be a factor in guiding your seeding rate. Any long term soil ammendents like building organic matter can help reduce crusting problems.

A fact that often surprises people is that eveness of emergence of a corn stand is extremely important. Plants that emerge 10 days later are as good as weeds to the rest of the stand.

 

[Susquatch]

I'm not sure what your question is but I'll can tell that if you are seeing that plants do not ever emerge in your field that is very important and must be addressed. You may not be able to prevent the issue occurring but your ending plant population needs to be a factor in guiding your seeding rate. Any long term soil ammendents like building organic matter can help reduce crusting problems.

A fact that often surprises people is that eveness of emergence of a corn stand is extremely important. Plants that emerge 10 days later are as good as weeds to the rest of the stand.

OK, how about rephrasing my question.....

Given that the seed companies mix old unused less-fertile seed with new seed, what percentage of them do they anticipate will never come up?

 

[DPittman]

OK, how about rephrasing my question.....

Given that the seed companies mix old unused less-fertile seed with new seed, what percentage of them do they anticipate will never come up?

You can (and should) get a certificate of analysis that shows the germination for every bag of seed. But remember germination results on a certificate are under ideal conditions, what actually comes up in your field can be a different thing....hence using your actual emergence rate in guiding your planting rate.

 

[Tom O]

What’s Farmer Porn without a joke.

 

[combustable herbage]

There is no right answer. Or maybe I should say that it depends......

Your climate, your soil, the corn variety, etc etc all affect that.

I plant 30 inch rows with seeds about 6" apart in my best two fields, and 7" in my 3rd field. On my farm, this will yield about 250 bu/ac and 200 bu/ac with optimum fertilizing. Keep in mind that farm production is a balance between the cost of inputs and the market price of corn.

But I'm gunna assume you are talking sweet corn in southern Ontario in a vegetable garden. If so, you are not as interested in overall yield as you are in nice big full cobs.

Therefore, you can do something like 36 and 8 or so and get a good garden harvest if you fertilize and water well, and control bugs, pests, and weeds.

Well I don't want to start any corn spacing wars I was asking for a friend he he. I understand thinning them out for a better yield I just hate playing god and pulling out good growing plants. I read the book "Teaming with Microbes" and have been using compost tea in the garden and yard for about 5 years better every year, I am planting my cannabis and corn in the same spots every year to try and take advantage of the existing microbes in that spot. The problem is it makes everything including weeds grow well so I still have to get some straw down keep them down. I don't add any fertilizer from the store for nitrogen I make a natural one from stinging nettles and then I put my trust in nature and am thankful for the harvest I receive.

 

[Former Member]

A little off topic from machining but a new machine all the same (sort of )

 

[DPittman]

Pretty cool.

 

[LenVW]

Unfortunately when you spray crops it requires you to use water as a carrier.
Water is a heavy medium and will limit the acres of coverage completed by the drone Which has limited capacity for carrying liquid tanks.
Typical wheeled sprayers can be 500 - 1600 gallon capacity.

Pup tank refilling would be the practical way to use the spray drones. This keeps the drone in the air spraying and less time refilling on the ground.

When my family ran 600 acres, Farming was a race when weather conditions were favourable.