FARM JOURNAL/MARCH 1983

S u r p l u s e s o r n o . . .

N e w

c o r n y i e l d

i n c r e a s e s

a h e a d

F a r m J o u r n a l r e c e n t l y

b r o u g h t t h e s e f o u r t o p c o r n

g r o w e r s t o g e t h e r t o l o o k

a t t h e i r — a n d y o u r — f u t u r e .

H e r e ' s w h a t t h e y s e e

By LANE PALMER, Edit

Editor's Note: With corn already in such surplus, you may ask why FARM JOURNAL continues to focus on higher yields. Our answer is that food produc­tion is the farmer's purpose in life; that no matter how many nor how few acres you decide to grow this year, your goal will still be to produce the high­est yield that gives you the lowest cost per bushel.

• When a third, successive record corn crop began taking shape last summer, FARM JOURNAL editors de­cided it was time to reappraise production trends with this amazing crop. We invited four outstanding growers to Illinois, there to visit some top farms and then talk about corn's future.

The new record national average of 114.8 bu. per acre announced by USDA last month confirms both the timeliness of, and conclusions from, our meet­ing. Surpluses or no, we have more corn yield in­creases coming. And the key to future increases is the same as that to last year's big crop: Water!

Though all four farmers (photo) were chosen for all-around corn-growing ability, two of the four are already irrigating: Ike Newberry of Early County, Ga., and Richard Uhrenholdt of Antelope County, Neb. And a third, Louis Shininger of Defiance County, Ohio, is using it for backup in dry years.

But clearly the one who has been most innovative in bringing extra water to his crop was our host, Herman Warsaw of McLean County, 111. Yet War­saw gives no thought to irrigation in his future, andl>

Photo Fred Leavitt

EXPERIMENT WITH EXTRA LIGHT by Fred Welch, University of Illinois, interested our panelists (from left): Ike Newberry, Georgia; Louis Shininger, Ohio; Herman Warsaw, Illinois; Richard Uhrenholdt, Nebraska.

FARM JOURNAL/MARCH 1983 19

ll

T h e h a r d e r y o u p u s h

for yields, t h e b e t t e r

it is for t h e s o i l . "

— H e r m a n W a r s a w

for good reason: Last year, for the fourth time on the same field, he topped 300 bu. per acre! And he had a second field go over that mark last year.

"Residue management is the key, " Warsaw told us time and again during our two-day visit. "These prair­ie soils were not built with a plow. They were built by decay of residue—from the top down. That's how Na­ture did it—and the way we must do it ."

Warsaw's system of "conservation tillage," arrived at by trial and error over the last 25 years, is to chop the stalks and chisel to a depth of 15" in the fall. "Then I go over it with a field cultivator in the spring. "Shallowly," he adds. "You should try not to turn up cold soil."

Warsaw would be the first to warn that his system might not work on your soil—that everyone needs to experiment, just as he has. But he's convinced that farmers everywhere should till their fields less and do it so they incorporate residue in only the top 4" of soil.

"If you plow residue under, you lose organic matter—it 'burns up.' Organic matter is important be­cause that's where your soil gets texture and water-holding capaci­ty," Warsaw insists. "If you mix it into the top portion of the soil, the residue feeds the organisms and creates organic matter."

Warsaw probably has done more soil testing than any farmer we know. One page of results he gave us showed readings from five different fields, each sampled at eight different levels of the soil profile, and each sample analyzed for six different nutrients.

That's why you're not inclined to argue when Warsaw says mat-ter-of-factly: "We increased our organic content from 3.3% in 1964 to 6.6% in 1978. In one test the University ran, a core sample from one of these fields absorbed 8" of water, whereas a sample from a moldboarded field would only take in 4" of water."

Our panel debated the best tools for incorporating residue, a debate

that's going on all over the country this winter. Louis Shininger agrees with Warsaw on fall chiseling. "Our chiseled ground dries out quicker so we can get on it earlier in the spring," he said. "But usually the land that we moldboard stays wet."

Warsaw smiled and added: "And a lot more of your spring rains will run off your moldboarded land; it will erode more; and then it will be the first to dry out."

Warsaw's deep root zone impressed all of us, espe­cially Ike Newberry, who has to contend with severe compaction in his area. "I don't see how you can pull chisels 15" deep," he said.

"You don't do it all at once ," Warsaw assured him. "It takes several years to loosen up the soil. We started chiseling at 8" to 10"—about the same depth we had been plowing. We got our yields up to 180 to 190 bu. and decided we had to get the water down deeper. It took us about three years to work the chisels down to 15". Maybe that's why I've never seen a field respond to deep chiseling in less than four years."

Here's how Warsaw's 1978 results from profile samples reflect benefits of deep chiseling:

Depths at which

0-3" % org. mat. 6.6 P2 Ib./A 264 Klb./A 914

sampl

3"-6" 5.4 166 470

Now here are parallel results undisturbed fencerow. % org. mat. 5.8 P2 Ib./A 50 K Ib./A 652

4.5 26 452

es were taken in the field

6"-9" 12"-18" 5.5 4.1 114 44 346 366 from a nearby

4.0 2.7 12 14 320 284

18"-24' 3.6 60 400

2.3 20 262

30"-36" 2.7 14 392

0.9 10 200

H e r m a n W a r s a w -

A p o s t l e o f C o n s e r v a t i o n

• Like Ike Newberry (see above), most farmers who have heard of Her­man Warsaw probably think his pri­mary goal always has been to grow 300-bu. corn. Not so. But let him tell it just the way he has told it to small farm audiences across the Midwest:

"In the 1950s, after seven years on the district conservation board, I be­gan to question the ways we were try­ing to control erosion. We were spending a lot of money on terraces and other structures, yet we still had a lot of erosion.

"I tried no-till for a while, but too much of the water ran off under the stalks. Besides, people believed that a conservation program just couldn't build yields.

"One spring, it was too wet to moldboard plow some of my bottom land. We'd been using a chisel on our soybean ground, so I decided to chisel that cornfield 4" deep in two direc­tions. We followed the chisel with a disk-harrow and ended up with a per­fect seedbed and a good stand.

"The next year, we split an 80-acre field into 10-acre strips, which we al­ternately plowed and chiseled. That August we could see the differences right to the row. The moldboarded land was cracked, and the corn was firing. The chiseled land had no cracks, and the corn was lush.

"We harvested a couple of strips separately and had the corn weighed in town; there was a 14-bu. differ-

20 FARM JOURNAL/MARCH 1983

Richard Uhrenholdt questioned whether residue de­serves that much credit: "You started with a very deep topsoil. You told us winds had deposited several inches of loess over already-rich prairie soil.''

"Yes," Herman nodded. "But this field had a defi­nite plowsole when I started chiseling. A plowshare smears the wet soil into a layer, right over last year's layer, making it tough for the roots to penetrate. Chisel points shatter that layer."

For 300-bu. corn, Warsaw fertilizes with 250 lb. of diammonium phosphate and 250 lb. of potash. "Some fertilizer moves down into the V-shaped grooves . . . you get more mixing than you think," he says. "Also, the organic matter encourages earth­worms, and the water with nutrients runs right down those holes. Then too, with yields like these, you get a lot of decaying roots down there.

"But you have to have a hybrid that can take full advantage of the water and nutrients," he added. His top performer has been FS854—a full-season, 118-to-120-day corn. This is the one that made 338 bu. for Warsaw in 1975, 326 bu. in 1981 and 308 last year on only 11" of moisture from planting to harvest.

"Funny, but Growmark's FS Seed Division wants to drop it," he says. "I t has a much more extensive root system, but in compacted soil, stalk rot hits it hard. I guess that's why so many farmers don't like it ."

Warsaw has plenty of reason for liking it. When we were there, in the middle of a wet summer, we saw stalk rot and other diseases all around him. But the stalks in his fields were still green and succulent.

"FS854 has a tendency to photosynthesize about 15 days longer in late summer than do most others," Warsaw explained. "And the last 15 days of photosyn­thesis are more important than the first 15. Keep lower

leaves from drying out, and you get less stalk rot. "The ears of FS854 are about an inch longer than

the average, and the kernels are very deep. That's one reason why it tends to dry down so slowly. This hybrid does its best when you crowd it ."

We were back to the subject of water again. Almost in unison, the other three growers asked why FS854 seemed so resistant to stalk rot. Warsaw said he sus­pected it was a result of the hybrid's deep root system and his own deep soil. Photosynthesis continues be­cause there are both water and nutrients to support it.

"I think I have fewer problems with both insects and diseases than do most farmers," Warsaw added. "I believe it's the natural resistance of a healthy plant."

At the end of our two-day gathering, we asked our panelists what phase of corn production probably held the most potential for their own future increases in yield. Warsaw responded at once: "Other than resi­due management, it's eliminating the disease factor. I can push almost any hybrid to a plateau. Then disease moves in, stalks start going down, and yields tail off."

Said Louis Shininger: "My biggest problem is that when I concentrate on one thing, I neglect something else. Right now I need more soil and tissue testing."

"We all have different problems," said Uhrenholdt. "Leaching of herbicides and fertilizer are my biggest. On dryland, we don't dare seed for more than 14,000 plants; that's not enough to keep the weeds down."

Ike Newberry probably summed things up best when he said: "Most of us don't apply ourselves profession­ally to the job the way Herman does. Of course, I had heard of him before, but I just figured he had a plot of land that he poured the fertilizer on to get big yields. But what he's doing is more practical than anything else I've seen or heard about growing corn." <\

o Darrell Smith ence. Now it's rare to get that much increase, but it had rained at the right time, and the chiseled ground held the moisture. So it isn't how much rain you get but how much you keep.

"I could see that the residue had done a much better job of holding the soil. I now believe that good residue management can give 100°/o control of wind erosion, and Illinois spends $6'/2 million a year to grade out our roadside ditches. So really, I got into yield contests because I felt they were the best way to promote conservation. Residue protects the soil and keeps it from both compacting and crusting. We've had few emergence problems.

"I've built up my fertility levels slowly. When I first talked about 400 to 600 lb. of potash per acre, the Uni­versity thought I was out of my mind. As yields increased, I kept increasing

FARMER/SCIENTIST. Though he has had little formal training in science, Herman Warsaw uses every scientific measure available to grow high yields.

the amount—but gradually to keep from creating problems. Today the University talks about these levels.

"In the spring we apply 28% nitro­gen, or you can use anhydrous. Then we cultivate with 7" sweeps—just deep enough to reach the bottom of the ridges. Many farmers would be content with one pass, but I feel that leaves too many clods for soil to ac­cept the herbicides. So we disk-har­row, spraying herbicide [usually Las­so] behind the disk but in front of the harrow.

"You'll need to work out a pro­gram that fits your soil type. Whether you use no-till, ridge tillage or some other type, the important thing is to use residue to tie soil particles togeth­er so they won't wash away.

"Some farmers still feel that trying for highest yields somehow hurts the soil. I believe just the opposite.

"The highest yields give you the most residue, and high residue is cru­cial for making the highest yields. So the harder you push corn for yield, the better it is for the soil." <

!'

ARM JOURNAL/MARCH 1983 21