Maize 2022

[crashbox]

Always budget on about 14t here with my chalk soils. Can be quite a variation. Will need some rain soon to be better than average this year. Although I have now stopped ploughing for most of the maize which does help conserve moisture a bit.

Drill is starting today

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What are you using to prep the ground?

Trialled subsoil legs & power harrow combination last year to conserve moisture (instead of traditional plough and two passes with spring tine)... worked well, no yield detriment and a single pass before the drill.

 

[crashbox]

I've often wondered if the Boys down in the Vale or the Depths of Somerset on the clays are in a better position than you guys the chalk or not. The answer is, yes, apart from in a minging wet spring when the stuff just doesn't want to grow. Thankfully that is a rare thing these days.

I once advised a customer to plant nearer 50,000 seeds per acre because all their maize was going into very old grass that had been there years and was an obvious wireworm risk. They fudged up their total area and ended up drilling a snitch more than my intended 48,000 or whatever I calculated and ever plant grew. Fudging stuff was very tall as well. Got some yield out of it that year.

The best maize I have ever seen grown in the UK was in Dorset but on some deep dark dirt that had been fed sewage sludge for a number of years. Taller than the cab on the forager but green as fudge. Anyone who knows the area will know it as it is in the same region as the watercress farm if it is still there.

High seed rate and low moisture = small cobs here... going for lower seed rate this year, time will tell.

 

[ollie989898]

High seed rate and low moisture = small cobs here... going for lower seed rate this year, time will tell.

How low a seed rate will you go? I had customers drilling at 42,000 in the belief it would advance maturity but in reality dropping from 45,000 to 42,000 only drops the actual seed rate by 1 plant per square metre. I know from my travels in the USA that they would go down to 32,000/acre in some cases but my concern with UK conditions would be that you're not exactly guaranteed 100% establishment in this area.

 

[crashbox]

How low a seed rate will you go? I had customers drilling at 42,000 in the belief it would advance maturity but in reality dropping from 45,000 to 42,000 only drops the actual seed rate by 1 plant per square metre. I know from my travels in the USA that they would go down to 32,000/acre in some cases but my concern with UK conditions would be that you're not exactly guaranteed 100% establishment in this area.

42000 funnily enough!

 

[ollie989898]

What are you using to prep the ground?

Trialled subsoil legs & power harrow combination last year to conserve moisture (instead of traditional plough and two passes with spring tine)... worked well, no yield detriment and a single pass before the drill.

I've seen plough, sumo, powerharrows and various combinations of all sorts used. So long as there is tilth around the seed maize will normally get up and go nicely. A lot of corn is grown in the world using No till methods as they don't want to lose their soil moisture.

 

[Dead Rabbits]

You guys are talking about 40-50k seeds per acre? If so that’s wild. We’d be 28-30k

 

[Will Blackburn]

The idea of 14ft high maize is wild to us over here. Small plants and cool summers makes for a different approach.

 

[Serup]

You guys are talking about 40-50k seeds per acre? If so that’s wild. We’d be 28-30k

How many cobs do you get per plant? We aim for 1, as 2 won’t mature. If we seed much less, we will get 2 cobs and bad silage here. I seed 40.000/acre.
Your yields are probably also different to ours?

 

[Boysground]

What are you using to prep the ground?

Trialled subsoil legs & power harrow combination last year to conserve moisture (instead of traditional plough and two passes with spring tine)... worked well, no yield detriment and a single pass before the drill.

Have a 5m Quivogne Saturn it’s a bit like a sumo but not as power hungry, curved legs that lift but don’t turn the soil from depth. I like this because it reduces the amount of black grass seed brought up. 1 or 2 passes with this depending on soil. I have some heavier silt soil which is either like wet plasticene or concrete, not ploughing is great on this.

The Saturn is then followed with a simba unipress another underrated machine. It’s brilliant on chalk as it consolidates rather than lifts which is what we need. It’s great with any large lumps on the silt. May is often dry here so I hope that no ploughing saves some moisture. Plenty of slurry and fym going on all fields.

I do have 30ac of maize going in after grass that will be ploughed. It’s just easier with the grass. I always do this on the easier working soil.

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[E_B]

Went and had a look some of the maize ground last night

 

[ollie989898]

How many cobs do you get per plant? We aim for 1, as 2 won’t mature. If we seed much less, we will get 2 cobs and bad silage here. I seed 40.000/acre.
Your yields are probably also different to ours?

I've seen maize in the US with two near perfect and even cobs.

 

[Dead Rabbits]

How many cobs do you get per plant? We aim for 1, as 2 won’t mature. If we seed much less, we will get 2 cobs and bad silage here. I seed 40.000/acre.
Your yields are probably also different to ours?

1 or two. In our area it seems to be 1 is more common. So converted our grain yield. Last year our corn did 4.8 tonne/acre. Our 5 year average is 4.4/acre. The county average is 4/acre.

We plant28-30k seeds to the acre. Apply 8-16 k per acre low DM watery liquid manure from an open lagoon and apply 80-120 units of N on the acres grown on the dairy farm at V 6 or so. Establishment is usually a burn down spray then 1 or two tillage passes plus one pre emergence spray for the season.

Plant mid April to mid may, harvest end of July to mid august. We are by no means a high yield area but it’s a cost effective feed to grow. We also are not pushing the inputs but I consider water our limiting nutrient.

 

[ProDrive]

Is it right that people are thinking about stopping sowing maize for the foreseeable until it rains?

 

[O'Reilly]

Lad who drilled ours on Monday said they are. Ours was the first job. He wasn't looking forward to when people do pull their finger out. I wanted it planted and rolled tight before we lose any more moisture, and I don't like late harvests

 

[dowcow]

We always used to do a few passes with the cultivators to make lots of loose warm soil to plough fairly deep, 8-10 inches, because we were told the maize needed lots of loose soil to put out a large amount of roots to really do well.

It worked okay, but around here we usually get a decent amount of rain most years, and sometimes harvest would be an absolute mess with that lack of soil structure deep down.

Last year, I tried something different. I used a low disturbance subsoiler quite deep. While I was cracking the soil 10-12 inches down, I wasn't bringing it up or mixing or smashing it to pieces, and the top cultivation and ploughing was only to mix in some muck firstly at a few inches before the subsoiling, then ploughing as I would for barley or grass at 5-6 inches but leaving a nice clean seedbed with very little trash coming back up after rolling and power harrowing 2 inches deep.

I will be repeating this this year, as the maize did better than ever before, and my contractor told me our crop was the best he had seen that year that hadn't been under plastic. The trailers travelled extremely well too.

I have never used DAP or any artificial phosphate but P indexes are regularly 4 or higher.

 

[crashbox]

We always used to do a few passes with the cultivators to make lots of loose warm soil to plough fairly deep, 8-10 inches, because we were told the maize needed lots of loose soil to put out a large amount of roots to really do well.

It worked okay, but around here we usually get a decent amount of rain most years, and sometimes harvest would be an absolute mess with that lack of soil structure deep down.

Last year, I tried something different. I used a low disturbance subsoiler quite deep. While I was cracking the soil 10-12 inches down, I wasn't bringing it up or mixing or smashing it to pieces, and the top cultivation and ploughing was only to mix in some muck firstly at a few inches before the subsoiling, then ploughing as I would for barley or grass at 5-6 inches but leaving a nice clean seedbed with very little trash coming back up after rolling and power harrowing 2 inches deep.

I will be repeating this this year, as the maize did better than ever before, and my contractor told me our crop was the best he had seen that year that hadn't been under plastic. The trailers travelled extremely well too.

I have never used DAP or any artificial phosphate but P indexes are regularly 4 or higher.

What soil type? Sandy here and makes sense to me.

 

[dowcow]

What soil type? Sandy here and makes sense to me.

Fairly sandy or silty in places, but black when ploughed and wet rather than brown I would consider proper sandy soil to be, drying to grey. One agronomist described it as peaty, and it often has that smell too. It's incredibly flat around here and under a mile from the sea, reclaimed salt marsh I think. There's a very thin layer of proper sand with cockle shells in it a few feet down. If the drains and subsoil are working right it dries quickly, but it can get really sticky and stays wet a long time if it caps.

 

[Headless chicken]

Last of the grass to clear ready for the ploughs.

hard frost and 1 degree here this morning. Quite happy it’s still in the bag.

 

[pappuller]

One pass with the 3 in 1 and she would probably sow, the pilots abit jaded after 72hrs+ of little or no sleep in Blackpool

 

[Flatlander]

1 or two. In our area it seems to be 1 is more common. So converted our grain yield. Last year our corn did 4.8 tonne/acre. Our 5 year average is 4.4/acre. The county average is 4/acre.

We plant28-30k seeds to the acre. Apply 8-16 k per acre low DM watery liquid manure from an open lagoon and apply 80-120 units of N on the acres grown on the dairy farm at V 6 or so. Establishment is usually a burn down spray then 1 or two tillage passes plus one pre emergence spray for the season.

Plant mid April to mid may, harvest end of July to mid august. We are by no means a high yield area but it’s a cost effective feed to grow. We also are not pushing the inputs but I consider water our limiting nutrient.

what moisture level would you corn be at in mid August