- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
That was the idea behind the rip, just the legs on a toolbar spread to match the planter spacings but with no points or shoes or whathaveyou on the bottoms of the legs.In my experience Maize, a bit like fodder beet, is easy to grow but difficult to grow well. It’s about attention to detail and sticking to the rule book. If you break the rules or drop the ball the crop will punish you mercilessly!
At the end of the day maize is a Mediterranean plant being grown in a non-Mediterranean climate. Breeding and Genetics can do so much, pumping plenty of DAP into it can do a bit more, but it is what it is. Above all it needs heat units to thrive and these can be scarce in your location KP and the UK.
I know one or two where having a bash with strip till maize when I left... but I left so didn’t see the results. In theory it should work!
It looked extremely untidy of course, but the results were better by about 12% than the plough/PH X2 plant and roll area in the same field two years running.
It was helped by that die-back from the rip, no doubt, somewhere in between high disturbance DD and strip-tillage.
The germ was about equal but the roots were far superior.
This year I airseeded 3 paddocks of fodderbeet, about 12ha in total. The best one is in sand dunes about 30 metres from the sea!!