He Solid Seeds Corn With Deere 750 Drill

He Solid Seeds Corn With Deere 750 Drill PLANTERS Planters I don t have all the answers yet but I m convinced solid-seeded corn is a practical idea I m doing it again this year says Todd Intermill Colman S Dak who used his 15-ft Deere 750 no-till drill last year to plant 17 acres of solid seeded corn in 7 1/ 2-in rows It sounds crazy until you stop to think that until 10 or 15 years ago almost all soybeans were planted in rows Now solid-seeded beans are very common Maybe the same thing will happen with corn Inter-mill told FARM SHOW He points to narrow-row corn research done by Pioneer Hi-Bred International in eastern South Dakota and western Minnesota Studies in 1991 and 1992 found a 5 to 13 bu /acre yield advantage for 20-in row corn over 30-in row corn Why stop with 20-in rows? asks Intermill If I m going to plant no-till anyway why plant in rows at all? The extra stalks aren t a problem with no-till And by solid-seeding corn I can use the same drill to plant all my crops instead of spending $25 000 for a new no-till drill that I use only to plant soybeans Intermill drilled five different 93 to 101-day hybrids and one dwarf hybrid Each hybrid had a different seed size Grain drills were designed to plant small grains so getting the right corn populations can be tricky but I found that seed corn drops very evenly from the fluted meters The problem is that it can get hung up in the drill s ribbed seed tubes and bunch up in the furrow I found that medium flat seed drops more evenly through the tube than round seed A smooth-sided flexible seed tube like the type used on older grain drills would probably provide a more even stand The experimental corn fields were harvested with both a Deere 220 flex head and a 20-in row corn head both mounted on his Deere 7700 combine It was a tough year for growing corn in his area because wet conditions delayed planting until May 23rd Yields averaged 83 bu /acre compared to 90 to 113 bu for his conventionally-planted corn Based on his tests Intermill says he thinks a short statured plant works best for solid-seeded corn when a flex head is used to harvest it because it allows the reel to reach the ears He experimented with a 75-day 4-ft high Cargill dwarf hybrid that he planted at 42 000 seeds per acre his goal was 50 000 seeds per acre He says plant height isn t a concern when a corn head is used Intermill calculated population by using a formula in his drill s operating manual - and a lot of guesswork Deere s operating manual mentions that the 750 no-till drill can be used to solid seed corn but it doesn t have a calibrating chart for corn However I was still able to consistently get a plant population in the low-to-mid 30 000 per acre range Solid seeded corn matures more slowly than row corn so it may be best to plant a shorter-season hybrid that your area would normally require says Intermill Most seed companies have one or two numbers in the 90 to 95-day maturity range I plan to mount liquid fertilizer tanks on the drill to apply starter fertilizer to get the crop growing faster Intermill says combine manufacturers could design a header specifically for solid-seeded corn Until they do he says either a flex head or corn head will work A corn head eliminates the need to plant short corn hybrids and does a good job of harvesting solid-seeded corn The one I used got 98% of the ears One problem with a flex head is that the reel may be too low to reach the ears especially on taller hybrids A detassler could be mounted ahead of the reel so that it would harvest only the 18 to 24-in section of the plant where the ear is attached A flex head takes in a lot more crop material than a corn head However most combines are over-powered anyway and can easily handle the extra material Intermill also planted corn in twin rows 7 1/2 in apart 3 3/4 in off the center of 30-in ridges He used duct tape to close up every other pair of holes on drill He used a 6-row 30-in corn head to harvest the paired rows For more information contact: FARM SHOW Followup Todd Intermill

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