Maize Planting Checklist 2014

So, as we stand on the brink of planting, here are 10 practical things to watch out for if you are having a contractor plant your maize crop for you. All too often when walking fields I come across the signs that not all planters are doing the job they should be, namely planting seed at a uniform depth, with nice even spacings between plants and with plants growing at the same speed.

The field has been cultivated well, there's a lovely seedbed just waiting to be drilled and you have called the contractor and the seed and fertiliser is in the field waiting to go. So here's a few things to look out for to make sure the drill is fit for purpose to do your job. Don't just assume because he has just finished drilling 40 hectares for your neighbour everything is hunky-dory!

1. Whilst the tractor is standing with the drill in the air, check the machine is level with the rear axle of the tractor on the link arms. You won't believe how many times I find machines hooked up to tractors that aren't level.

2. If the drill is an Accord/Kvernland type that has a shoe/coulter on each planter unit that creates the slot into which the seed is placed, have a look at the bases to make sure there is still plenty of 'meat' on the shoes and that they aren't worn down to the extent the seed pipe is visible. This is important, because if the plates are very worn, the shoe tends to smear, rather than cut a slot for the seed to drop into. Also, the reduced clearance tends to cause the seed to bounce more and get dragged by the body more leading to bunching and irregular planting depth.

3. If you are putting placement fertiliser down like DAP/MAP, are these shoes all the same depth?

4. When the drill is lowered to the ground to load the seed hoppers, did the depth control wheels hit the ground at the same time (if the machine is level behind the tractor)? If the depth wheels are an inch out, you can guarantee the outside planter boxes are going to placing seed an inch plus deeper than the boxes on the opposite side, worse the wider the machine is. You can tell this post emergence when there are 2-4 rows that are later emerging than the rest every 6 rows across the field (if an 8 row planter).

5. Once the drill hoppers are full and ready to go, test to see if the seed and fertiliser is flowing evenly out of all the pipes. Clear plastic containers you get from Indian/Chinese take-aways are really useful to catch seed and fertiliser when doing this test so you don't waste anything. Quite often, especially after the machine has done a fair acreage, DAP powder can bind to the inside of the pipes causing a constriction thereby reducing the amount flowing down the pipes. (or if the machine has been put away without cleaning them out at the end of the previous season!). This will cause striping where you get a line, or lines where the plants are paler than the rest.

6. Check the seed rate! There is nothing worse if you are growing a crop of maize for a specific use, like grain for crimping or combining where you plant at a lower seed rate than forage maize and you find out post event that the seed rate is too high, or too low. It really does affect yield.

Satisfied the drill is ready to go, then let him line up and make a start.

7. As the machine is going along, walk alongside at look at the headstock on the planter. If the machine is 'leaning' forward, or backward, its wrong. Forward leaning generally leads to the placement fertiliser being put too deep, backwards and its too shallow (you might even see granules on the surface). Forward leaning tends to also lift the press wheels at the back so the seed doesn't get good contact with the soil around it.  Backward leaning and the seed could be going too deep, or too shallow and it doesn't get enough soil covering it.

8. Are the wheel eradicator tines actually doing what they are supposed to, taking out the tractor wheel marks and loosening the soil where the tractor has just driven?

9. Check the depth of the seed across the whole drill width by scraping away the soil and looking in each row for the seeds. The seed dressing is bright pink or red for a reason, it makes them very easy to find. If you cannot find them, stop the planter and check why not. When I check, I clear about 2 meters in each row as this allows me to check depth, spacing and if the machine calibrated properly.
If the speed is right, the seed placement should be right with little bunching evident. I know some of the new drills can go quite fast and still be very accurate, however the older ones can't.

10. After a few bouts, check the overlap/underlap on the outside rows. If the bout markers aren't right, then the sprayer is not going to do its job correctly either. It looks really bad when there is a nice weedy path between every sprayer bout width, or theres a stunted crop where its had a double dose of herbicide.

Anyone can grow maize, but it takes a real effort to grow a great crop of maize as it is a lazy plant, it will show up every deficiency, fault and inconsistency in the field.

If the contractor does a good job, pay him promptly!

Twin Row Maize

The concept behind this has been been thought about for a very long time, technology and a lot of trial and error is finally starting to bear fruit and at last this technology has been successfully demonstrated in England this year

Conventional maize is typically precision drilled on 30"(75cm) rows, some countries this varies from 50cm up to 90cm row widths depending on use and machinery. Row spacings have by and large been governed by header types for harvesting grain, whilst with forage maize the Kemper type header now means that row widths are governed more by sprayer and cultivation equipment wheel widths.

It is well known that Maize does not like any competition of any sort, so placing plants close together in a single row immediately forces in-row competition on the crop for light, water and nutrients. The Twin-row system negates this by splitting the single row into two rows ten inches apart, with a twenty inch gap to the next twin row. Basically, the system still utilises the standard 30" system, just modifying it so that you end up with about 25-30% more rooting space, sunlight and water availability per plant. Or, seen from another angle, 25-30% less competition from its neighbouring plants.

The video clearly shows this to good effect.

Interesting articles recently in the press.

Two landmark publications came out this last week (7th May), the fist being an article published by NASA on their predictions for global rainfall patterns in the future.The report highlights the correlations between increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and the level of rainfall across all regions of the planet.If you are farming, I thoroughly recommend that you look at this as it is going to determine what and where we grow food, in particular Brazil, Southern Africa, Northern Australia and all countries around the Mediterranean.

The article can be found here:
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2013/may/HQ_13-119_Rainfall_Response.html

The second article of note this week was the report that Carbon Dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere had reached the symbolic figure of 400ppm, the last recorded time this level had been reached previously was 3-5 million years ago. Now on its own, this probably doesn't register to highly on the radar, however a week earlier there was another related article pointing to the fact the increasing CO2 was leading to a more acid Artic Ocean and changing the way ice and currents flow, indeed there are suggestions that polar low pressure systems are becoming more frequent as a result which in turn is causing the erratic flow of the jetstream which in turn is influencing the weather in the northern hemisphere.

This article can be found here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22486153 whilst the article on polar lows is here: http://e360.yale.edu/feature/linking_weird_weather_to_rapid_warming_of_the_arctic/2501/

It seems that as farmers, we are going to be trying to produce food in ever changing and more erratic weather patterns as time goes on, which is going to make an event like 2012 more likely in future. In which case, we need to become better adapted to producing food in these scenarios, as the current financial risk vs reward ratio is unsustainable in its current guise of large corporates profiteering excessively in relation to the primary producers.

Late Winter update?...Should be spring!

So here we are at the end of the first week of April and it is still freezing cold, the ground is drying out incredibly quickly with the biting easterly winds and everyone is asking when will spring arrive!

Winter wheat crops generally look hammered, thin and blue in colour at this time, with most fields having bare patches in them. What has been so encouraging from my point of view has been the fact that most of my autumn drilled cereals are still in the field, they haven't succumbed to the unrelenting rain and now cold. I say most, but not all. One variety in particular has faired poorly in two different areas, one near Lands End, the other near Holsworthy. One was drilled early, the other later, but not stupidly late given where it is. Both on lighter ground. Both drilled with tine type drills, one a min till type, the other a direct type. It looks like the soils at drilling time weren't dusty dry and as a result the tines have smeared a groove through the soil, which has not allowed any real root development to take place and in the direct drilling case, the whole lot succumbed to the elements. What is interesting is that other varieties drilled in the same manner have survived, whilst those drilled with a combination drill have flourished and generally look very good.

Istabraq and its offspring Avatar both look good, both varieties that like the late drilling slot, have high specific weights and very good fusarium scores. Claire too looks very good and there are many a grower down here who are growing it and thanking their lucky stars that they have probably the easiest and most farmer friendly variety out there on farm, as that which didn't get drilled last Autumn has been going in right up till mid March without any problems.

Slugs have been the bane of most farmers this year, Oilseed rape has been hammered, some has been redrilled late in the autumn to winter oats, only for that too to have been grazed right out too. The early sown stuff put down with a subsoiler leg has been good, simple method and the seed wasn't put too deep, the ridges created mini microclimates and enabled the seedlings to get established. The stuff planted in to a sumo'd field conventionally got nailed, my feeling is the disc type drill put the seed too deep initially and the slugs had a field day. Wheat too has  been grazed to nothing despite repeated slug pelleting, the very wet and mild conditions up to January providing ideal conditions for them.

Paradoxically, we find ourselves now in a mini drought situation, grass is being scorched to nothing in the cold biting artic conditions that have prevailed for the last 6 weeks nearly, the last 3 weeks have seen cold frosty conditions daily with soil temperatures hovering around 2C, far from ideal to generate any growth. Late drilled wheat (Mid to Late February) is only now just emerging 5 weeks post planting.

The are a large number of farmers who are fast running out of forage of any kind, most first cut silage a have been used, second cuts are generally very dry and poor quality due to their cutting being delayed by last summers rains, third cut generally is wet, acidic and not very good either. Add to this a generally very poor quality whole crop cereals, maize yields averaging about 6-8 tons/ac, less than half what you would normally expect, low quality, stunted grazed forages like turnips and kale due to little sunshine and you can appreciate the perfect storm scenario many find themselves in along with the cost of bought in feed stuffs. Most dairy farmers are feeding more in terms of inputs to the cows than they would normally do, whilst the cows are struggling to perform as they should. The common voiced thread is 'feeding for 30, but only getting 27 out of them' even though the 'paper' forage tests suggest better quality than what is happening in reality. Have heard cases of silage values under wet analysis coming back 30% less in ME than NIRS tests.

May we soon have some warm weather so the crops start growing and we can get the maize in the ground!

Weather issues!

Well most of us have and are having to deal with weather issues, most likely for the next 18 months as the after effects of this years weather ease their way through the next cropping year. What do I mean by this, well it matters little what crop you are growing, whether grass or arable, compaction and subsoil damage from stock and machinery will have been considerable this year and these are very noticeable in autumn sown crops already this year and will be evident in grass growth rates in the spring.

About 40% of autumn crops are in the ground down here in the Southwest, a large amount of grass reseeding never got done because the ground conditions were poor too and any Oilseed Rape that was drilled has sustained a prolonged spell of attack from slugs and what is left is now being piled into by pigeons en masse!

To top it all, spring cereal options are now difficult with the chronic lack of spring cereal seed available.  I am not panicking yet as I think there will be seed coming available after new year that has been ordered on the proviso the wheat that was planned is not drilled. I know a lot will say that because the ground is now so wet, there is no chance in hell of it being dry enough to drill by the beginning of February. I remember clearly the statements earlier in 2012 about it taking years to recover the subsurface moisture deficits in much of England due the extreme drought conditions, look where we are now 7 months down the track. If we get this very cold weather that some forecasters are predicting, winter ploughing and late drilling winter wheat is still an option, especially any varieties with Claire in their parentage. Last year we were drilling Istabraq on ground at 800ft on the 1st of March and it still yielded more than all the earlier drilled stuff.

So don't panic, there is time yet still to get winter wheat in the ground, we still have a lot of weather to go through before spring and hopefully that which is planted will have a deep enough root system to survive while the cold weather kills off the slug problem and does something to remedy the soil structure issues. Just remember to raise the drilling rates up towards the 450 seeds/sqm level to account for higher seed mortality and reduced tiller numbers and don't drill too deep!

Maize thoughts

I know a lot of maize growers this year are probably thinking about whether it is the crop they should be growing, or thinking about reducing their acreage grown, or thinking why they decided to grow it in the first place. Yes it has been a really difficult year for maize growers, certainly down here in the south west, but then looking at wheat whole crop results and seeing starch levels down as low as 12%, you question the wisdom of relying on this as a starch source too. The same rules that apply to getting a good crop of wheat apply to growing a good crop of maize, namely good seedbeds, the right fertility, the right field aspect and a whole lot of SUNSHINE! Without the later, nothing grows, as can be seen with grass growth as well this year.

The vital thing now when looking at harvesting maize is to make sure the crop is as fit as possible before going into the clamp, cutting maize below 20% DM is really asking for a lot of trouble when it comes to be fed, the acid loading from the sap and sugars that convert into acid during the fermentation process will be off the richter scale, making for some very unhappy animals that are forced to eat it. Not to mention the potential environmental concerns of trying to control and store, dispose of all the effluent that is likely to pour out the bottom of the clamp.

A crop that has been re-drilled, showing the most yellow cob with the most starch, though only at about 20%DM.  The re-drilled stuff has a long way to go before it's ready to be ensiled.

A really good crop of maize (for this year), but at least 10 days away from being ready to cut. Taking this early will decimate all the hard work and add to the woes of trying to feed it successfully this coming winter.

This crop was at 30% DM, can see the die back in the plants, the sheaves on the cobs have started to brown off and the grains were firm with little milk in them. It may only be an 8 ton crop, but at least all of it will be utilisable. The cows will milk better off this than the crop above if ensiled at this stage.

It's despairing when you see fields as wet as this, this late in the year, the temptation is so strong to go and get the crop on a dryish day, but patience will give a better result.

 Maize under plastic this year seems to have been very variable, it certainly isn't the magic bullet to growing good maize, some very early drilled stuff rotted under the sheets, other stuff never got going as the soil temperatures were too low for adequate mineralisation of nutrients to take place. Those that planted late April and into May however did get some reasonable crops, however due to the low levels of sunlight, they have faced a nightmare trying to cut the crops without dragging up big pieces of plastic into the foragers as there hasn't been enough sunlight for it all to break down.

There are some things we can do however to improve the agronomy aspect of growing maize here in this part of the world. The issue is we have to get contractors and growers likewise to take it forward, as  contractors are heavily invested in the status quo at present.

Inter-row cultivation with something like this in the picture link below is what I have used very successfully in Zimbabwe in a pre-post-emergence herbicide application situation up to about 6 leaf stage. It is very useful where the soil has capped off after a heavy downpour and the soil has slumped a bit, destroys any young weeds, aerates the soil and can be configured to through the soil towards the plants, or into the middle of the row. It works tremendously well in combination with a post emergence fertiliser application as you can 'brush' the nitrogen in towards the roots, making the uptake and utilisation far better. The other beauty of these machines is they are light and don't require a lot of horsepower (and weight) to pull them.
http://www.oliverdahlman.com/sitebuilder/images/p114-600x289.jpg

Strip tillage / Rip-on-row tillage is another way we can get maize established, a very well documented and proven form of growing maize in both the southern hemisphere as well as the USA is slowly making an appearance here in the UK, but the machinery looks really expensive and requires a lot of horsepower to pull. There are simpler and less costly manufacturers about.
http://www.seeddaily.com/reports/Strip_till_improves_nutrient_uptake_and_yield_999.html

We also need to look at these types of planters to maximise sunlight availability per plant, whilst maximising nutrient uptake too. I saw one of these in the Freestate last December and the maize planted this way was noticeable healthier, further forward with thicker stems than that drilled conventionally. The farmer reckoned he was seeing a least a 10% grain yield advantage, in some cases up to 20% or more. I know Great-plains (Simba) have a machine here in UK, they have done some work with it this year, but I haven't yet been able to see how well it went. The link below is the machine I saw.
http://www.carrotech.co.za/twin-row/a-monosem-6x2-twin-row-planter-sold-in-mpumalanga-408

All food for thought.

Wheat Demo Plots 2012

The two sites, one at Tregony and the other at Bude had very contrasting starts this last season.

Tregony followed Winter Oats and was drilled by the 10th October in relatively good conditions at a seed rate of 64kg/ac (158kg/Ha) and had a good start with the mild and albeit wet conditions through till Christmas. Bude on the other hand followed grain maize in part of an oilseed rape field, which came off mid October. However, the heavens then opened and the stova on the surface acted as a lovely mulch retaining all this moisture. The situation was worsened by the fact that a Simba cultipress had disced the stalks just after cutting with the result the land became like a sponge and nothing could move on it till we got a lucky break mid November when we managed to get a plough in and sowed the plots right behind using a light tractor with a 3m triple K type cultivator and air drill. Even so, there were wet areas where we had to lift the implement out of the ground almost in order to get through without getting stuck.

The above photo shows the thin looking Stigg (more brown than green) with JB Diego (New seed) on the left of the dividing strip and farm-saved JB Diego on the right. Ignore the very green headland which is Nickerson Original Invicta seed, look closely at the establishment of the JB Diego. The new seed has established far better with a denser plant number, is more vigorous in its growth at this early stage, something that would continue right through the plots lifespan.

Edgar, a new variety bred by Limagrain in Germany and a useful Group 1 milling variety was in the demo to see how well it might fair down in wet and wild Cornwall. It was the greenest all through winter, well established and very clean. It has a disease rating similar to Alchemy with similar yield. It is the very dark green plot, with Solstice on it's left and Exsept on it's right and Crusoe, a new group 1 in the foreground. The photo below shows the difference between Invicta and Alchemy coming through the winter, Invicta had much more biomass and leaf area, Alchemy much more prone and prostrate.

The three plots visible below are left to right Istabraq (low vigour seed and looking thin), Gravitas and Horatio to right of the central divide and Avatar below it. Gravitas had a low Thousand Grain Weight TGW, so looks very thick, Horatio looked well and green through out the winter. Avatar is just visible to the right of the Horatio.

The Bude plots by contrast looked quite rough given the way it was mauled in.

The late planting proves that sowing low vigour seed is not a good idea! It was a struggle to do plant counts in the Istabraq plot, Stigg also was not looking happy, so can safely say this is not a variety to drill late!

However, by the end of March they had started to pull together remarkably well. The Edgar still looking very green compared to all the rest as can be seen below.

By May, the Istabraq plot that had looked bare looked like this, a transformation, as it tillered like mad with some plants having 20 plus tillers. This was really surprising as this would have been ploughed in in normal circumstances to establish a spring crop.

By May, the Edgar was showing just what a huge plant relative to everything else it is, very noticeable with the thick wide chord leaves. This photo I took up at Bury St Edmunds shows this clearly.

I held two open days this year at both venues, the main ones being the 5th and 12th of July, first at Bude, then Tregony. The Bude day was well attended with 60 people attending during the course of the day to look at the Wheat and Oilseed Rape plots. Alastair Moore, Nickerson Sales Director was in attendance and gave everyone a frank and well appreciated appraisal of what was happening with the varieties, as well as in the wider grain areas to the north. It was really useful having a large scale cereal growers' perspective on the risk versus reward of varieties, how spray costs this year were making such a dent in farm budgets and what the wet weather was doing to potential yield estimates. 

Finally, on the last day of August, we managed to harvest/salvage the wheat plots at Bude, with the ones at Tregony done a week later. Here are the videos of both demo plots just prior to them being cut, this gives you a fairly accurate idea of how well these varieties stood up to this years conditions.

I am trying to get the results into a format I can post on here, so far it is not like excel or pdf files!