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Let's get to our question(s) of the week.
What have you found to work best for residue management in strip-till corn on corn? What equipment/attachments or stalk degradation formula products do you recommend?
A: SoilWarrior is all that is needed. Trash is left to protect. I don't use anything to chop or degrade. All natural planter uses row cleaner if needed.
- Roger Engstrom, Ames, Iowa
A: Yep. A properly set row unit, whether it's the planter with attachments for no-till or strip-till, will make its way through the residue. Soil scientists say commercial nitrogen and some of these other products to break down residue are actually bad for the soil.
- Jon Stevens, Rush City, Minn.
A: Corn on corn is a challenge. It kind of depends on your strip-till machine type. I know my mole knife machine would never go through standing cornstalk without a shredder pass. A multiple disc type machine would do better (ETS/Dawn/Pluribus). We plant soybeans in cornstalks but we shred them first and it seems to go fine except right after a rain. We're looking to try Calmer row units on cornheads in 2023 to eliminate shredder pass.
- Jon Olson, Minn.
A: I have seen research from a university that shows no difference in residue degradation with the application of nitrogen!
- Paul Groneberg, Hoffman, Minn.
A: I think chemical fertilizers kill much of the soil life that uses residue for food. Perhaps reducing degradation and producing nutrients needed by the plants. Anhydrous ammonia was produced to kill soil life so it could be compacted for aircraft runways.
- Roger Engstrom, Ames, Iowa
A: That may be a misconception. What proof do you have of this affect by chemical fertilizers? What do you define as a chemical fertilizer, Roger?
- Paul Groneberg, Hoffman, Minn.
A: Fungicide by design will harm the fungus in the soil. I've never heard of any fungicide that can discriminate good from bad. For herbicides I guess I would have to look for a university study to see if one group of herbicides is worse on soil life than another. Would be curious as well to see what some soil scientists have to say about insecticides.
We can take a broad look at our industry and say that the more of these chemicals we use the more dependent on them we become, and the more degraded our soils will become versus the previous generations that used a lot of primary tillage.
- Jon Stevens, Rush City, Minn.
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