Maize establishment after over winter cover crop

[jon the pom]

I'm dabbling in Regen Agric - as it may provide "public goods" for ELMS.
As we no longer drill OSR after Rye silage, our next crop will be maize next spring.
This seemed a good chance to try a "Diverse Cover Crop" so got Cotswold Seeds to supply a mix i/c vetch, forage rape, stubble turnip, fodder radish, sweet & crimson clovers, phacelia, and diamante rye (not cheap!). My contractor scratched it in, & I rolled it, on 3 July.
It's come up quite well & in full flower now - so have put a hive of bees in there.

Under "Regen Agric", the aim is no til ..... so how should we plan to establish our forage maize next spring? Normally we'd spray off the cover crop, disc etc, then drill. "Regen Purists" would probably suggest an undercrop, too.

Advice & comments, please.

 

[deleted user 837354]

I'm dabbling in Regen Agric - as it may provide "public goods" for ELMS.
As we no longer drill OSR after Rye silage, our next crop will be maize next spring.
This seemed a good chance to try a "Diverse Cover Crop" so got Cotswold Seeds to supply a mix i/c vetch, forage rape, stubble turnip, fodder radish, sweet & crimson clovers, phacelia, and diamante rye (not cheap!). My contractor scratched it in, & I rolled it, on 3 July.
It's come up quite well & in full flower now - so have put a hive of bees in there.

Under "Regen Agric", the aim is no til ..... so how should we plan to establish our forage maize next spring? Normally we'd spray off the cover crop, disc etc, then drill. "Regen Purists" would probably suggest an undercrop, too.

Advice & comments, please.

Mzuri seems to work with maize. I would spray off the cover crop and possibly run a topper or something over the residue before drilling as maize hates being shaded.

 

[sjt01]

We direct drill everything apart from maize, which we strip till. The strip till has, for each row, a winged leg going in about 12", followed by a rotavator with only blades directly behind each leg, followed by the drill. This is in the MGA cover crop trial, where we had some problems with Smart Radish stalks on a couple of plots.

 

[Mc115reed]

I'm dabbling in Regen Agric - as it may provide "public goods" for ELMS.
As we no longer drill OSR after Rye silage, our next crop will be maize next spring.
This seemed a good chance to try a "Diverse Cover Crop" so got Cotswold Seeds to supply a mix i/c vetch, forage rape, stubble turnip, fodder radish, sweet & crimson clovers, phacelia, and diamante rye (not cheap!). My contractor scratched it in, & I rolled it, on 3 July.
It's come up quite well & in full flower now - so have put a hive of bees in there.

Under "Regen Agric", the aim is no til ..... so how should we plan to establish our forage maize next spring? Normally we'd spray off the cover crop, disc etc, then drill. "Regen Purists" would probably suggest an undercrop, too.

Advice & comments, please.

Sheep on it and paddle it in as much as they’ll take then get somebody come in with a vaddy and drill straight in.. maybe a light disc if there’s still some trash on the surface or the ground gets too hard

 

[deleted user 837354]

We direct drill everything apart from maize, which we strip till. The strip till has, for each row, a winged leg going in about 12", followed by a rotavator with only blades directly behind each leg, followed by the drill. This is in the MGA cover crop trial, where we had some problems with Smart Radish stalks on a couple of plots.

The rotovator is only working the bit behind each leg? That is clever!

 

[jon the pom]

We direct drill everything apart from maize, which we strip till. The strip till has, for each row, a winged leg going in about 12", followed by a rotavator with only blades directly behind each leg, followed by the drill. This is in the MGA cover crop trial, where we had some problems with Smart Radish stalks on a couple of plots.

Thanks - This clever combination is probably great on deep, stone free top soils, but I'd be wary on our shallow flinty Chilterns soils

 

[jon the pom]

Sheep on it and paddle it in as much as they’ll take then get somebody come in with a vaddy and drill straight in.. maybe a light disc if there’s still some trash on the surface or the ground gets too hard

Thanks, I think this could work for us.

 

[sjt01]

Thanks - This clever combination is probably great on deep, stone free top soils, but I'd be wary on our shallow flinty Chilterns soils

We have plenty of flint - all our houses are made of it, and fields are still full. There is solid chalk about 18" down over most of the farm.

 

[Mc115reed]

Thanks, I think this could work for us.

Vaddy drill will go into most stuff and place the seed accurately ... your timing on the sheep needs too be key... leave them on too long and you’ll get a real hard baked ground you struggle too break up

 

[jon the pom]

Mzuri seems to work with maize. I would spray off the cover crop and possibly run a topper or something over the residue before drilling as maize hates being shaded.

It was the maize's lack of competitiveness at the start that worries me about the Regen Agric approach. Perhaps use the sheep first, as suggested elsewhere.

 

[jon the pom]

We have plenty of flint - all our houses are made of it, and fields are still full. There is solid chalk about 18" down over most of the farm.

.... We have red marl clay 10-12" (sorry 250 - 300 mm) down, & quite aggressive flints (the chalk is some 10-20 ft below that)

 

[jon the pom]

Thanks everyone - I will continue to look at options over the winter, then decide with my contractor in the spring

 

[jon the pom]

We direct drill everything apart from maize, which we strip till. The strip till has, for each row, a winged leg going in about 12", followed by a rotavator with only blades directly behind each leg, followed by the drill. This is in the MGA cover crop trial, where we had some problems with Smart Radish stalks on a couple of plots.

.... 12" deep is 3" into the red marl, tines, esp on the rotavator, don't last long in the flints, and pneumatic tyres get punctures.... hence we like scratching in with min-til! ... but not for maize in trash?

 

[sjt01]

.... 12" deep is 3" into the red marl, tines, esp on the rotavator, don't last long in the flints, and pneumatic tyres get punctures.... hence we like scratching in with min-til! ... but not for maize in trash?

As our soil structure develops with zero till, we plan to reduce tine depth. We did not get enough tilth without the rotavator, but again hope to do away with it as soil improves.

 

[Herefordagron]

We direct drill everything apart from maize, which we strip till. The strip till has, for each row, a winged leg going in about 12", followed by a rotavator with only blades directly behind each leg, followed by the drill. This is in the MGA cover crop trial, where we had some problems with Smart Radish stalks on a couple of plots.

I've been looking for something like this to plant maize! Did you make rotavator yourself?

 

[sjt01]

I've been looking for something like this to plant maize! Did you make rotavator yourself?

It was an old Howard 60" machine which we widened, and removed un-needed blade carriers

 

[DanM]

.... 12" deep is 3" into the red marl, tines, esp on the rotavator, don't last long in the flints, and pneumatic tyres get punctures.... hence we like scratching in with min-til! ... but not for maize in trash?

we graze covers similar to yours for a neighbour growing maize on heavy flinty ground. We mob graze them off for 6weeks in jan/feb. They’re then sprayed off. Short disc and drilled with a tempo. Works well. Key is sufficient sheep density to get a good trample effect on the cover.

 

[Vitu]

.... 12" deep is 3" into the red marl, tines, esp on the rotavator, don't last long in the flints, and pneumatic tyres get punctures.... hence we like scratching in with min-til! ... but not for maize in trash?

I built this to drill maize into cover crop. The flex 10 roller pretty much drops one seed at a time.
Results at harvest compared to the rest of our maize was surprisingly close.
Yield map from forager showed little difference in the field that we split. Half direct half conventional.

 

[Badshot]

I built this to drill maize into cover crop. The flex 10 roller pretty much drops one seed at a time.
Results at harvest compared to the rest of our maize was surprisingly close.
Yield map from forager showed little difference in the field that we split. Half direct half conventional.

Is that a low disturbance subsoiler?

 

[Vitu]

Yes it’s a Sumo LDS