Four years ago, with all commodity prices in the good to excellent range, it was a lot easier to maintain a good diverse mix of crops in our rotation. Now, that goal is more challenging with most commodity prices in the dumper. We are all limited on the short term monetary loss one can adsorb for the long term benefits of an expanded crop rotation. In 2018, we were down to three crops, alfalfa, winter wheat, and spring canola, with only winter wheat and spring canola in a regular crop rotation. Our alfalfa in a long rotation is more than eight years old. It's very important for successful longterm no-tilling to have diverse crop rotation for weed, and disease control. You get a wider selection of chemistry, and many soil borne diseases can decrease in severity. The closer you get to mono-cropping the closer you get to a mono-chemical reliance.
2018 Winter Wheat: We started seeding the 10th of September at 80#/a, and went into the winter in great shape with several tillers.
Yields were great with the ranch average breaking 100bu/ac, and some exceptional areas going over 150bu/a. We have never had a farm average of 100bu/a, but normally have exceptional areas going 140bu/a, --there were more of them in 2018. There were still ridges and eroded hilltops that were in the ~30-60bu/ac range. It's really difficult to get top yielding crops on ground that is eroded or continuing to erode regardless of commercial inputs. I didn't think we had any spring nights with frost, but there apparently was. The wheat showed definite frost damage along with other issues.
Brundage 96 replaced Madson winter wheat in our operation many years ago, and has performed very well. While scouting our fields this past year I noticed that there were a lot of deformed heads, some missing meshes, different kernel size within meshes, some missing meshes along the head, --just odd appearing. After having a couple of people look at it, no real conclusion could be made; however, it was suggested that maybe Brundage 96 has run it's course. The fall of 2018 we seeded certified seed of Brundage 96 and NorWest Duet. We'll watch the two cultivars and decide whether to continue with Brundage 96 after the 2019 harvest. Part of the value of Brundage 96 is that it is not a propratory cultivar and we can save back the seed, which costs from a third to half that of buying a certified proprietary variety, --which they all are now.
2018 Spring Canola: Winfield HyClass 730 was seeded the first week of April @ 5#/a. The crop emerged very well, and I could see that it was way too thick. Unlike 2017, the bloom lasted for a good three weeks. The year looked perfect to me for growing both winter wheat and spring canola, --but not. Canola is considered quite drought tolerant, and I concur with that after the long hot dry spell in the critical growing period of 2017. Heat tolerance may be something else though, and heat may be dropping the yields below our expectations. I'll have to check into that. With the moisture that canola pulls, I'm thinking that our high plant population negatively effected our yield. As we grow and learn more about this crop we'll get a better understanding.
2018 Alfalfa: The stand is old but production has not, in the past, slackened. This years alfalfa crop was only about 50%. The first cutting took close to a month to get off the field do to several rain events. Starting with the first cutting, the other two cuttings cascaded down respectively in both tonnage and quality.
No comments:
Post a Comment