Teach me about GM crops

[Ollie1983]

That is interesting. Here a stale seedbed is typically only about two months long, IE between cultivations and drilling the winter crop. I guess it would be much better if left until the spring for a spring crop, although spring crops are less popular over here.

Generally speaking this growing season has not been ideal,  we had a wet summer/autumn last year and a very cold hard winter, followed by a very dry spring. Hence yields this year will be reduced. In some areas some crops are very poor and will probably be cultivated in.

[Ollie1983]

Double cropping? You mean in corn? When you would drill/plant and harvest those respective crops? Sorry for all the questions.

Baling straw this year will be more widespread, as with the drought crops are shorter so there will be less straw about. Here in the SW of the country, there is a lot of livestock, at auction the other day prices for barley straw averaged £100 per acre. A little less for wheat, say £80. Even Canola haulm was making £35/acre. People will be short of straw for cattle bedding and so forth.

In a normal year though, some of the largest all arable units in the east simply chop their straw and see it as a problem which delays oilseed rape drilling. 

[Nebrfarmr]

I probably have a more unique perspective than most here, as most years I do everything from no-till to almost conventional till.  About the only thing I don't do is fall tillage.

My thoughts on GM corn.  They do NOT increase the yield POTENTIAL of the conventional corn they are based on.  Now before you start arguing with me, I will say they usually will outyield conventional corn.  What the GM corn does, is reduce the yield loss from various stresses.  For example, corn borer BT corn will not outyield the non-BT version of the same corn, provided the farmer applies enough pesticides to control corn borers, or has a field where corn boreres are not present.  What it does, is allows the corn to yield apporximately the same if there are borers or not.  Ditto the rootworm BT corn.  I don't have a problem with borers, but I do have one field that seems to have rootworm problems here and there most years.  Thr rootworm BT corn has shown 20+ BPA increases than the corn next to it when rootworms were present, plus it was a whole lot more pleasant to harvest.  On another field, where I never had a rootworm problem, the conventional corn outyielded the BT version by 2 or 3 BPA.  The Rootworm corn also seems to work better than pesticides, as it is present as soon as the seed sprouts, wheras when I would apply pesticides, if I went early, they wore off by the end of season, and if I waited until it would last through ear set, they got to munch roots on the small corn.  Rootworm corn for me had the same effect as 2 applications of pesticide, and at less cost.  I also didn't have to handle bags/boxes of poison.

Now for the Roundup corn, I can say it definately has its place.  I have some fields that are furrow irrigated, so no-till is out of the question, a field that is center pivot irrigated, and a couple small dryland fields.  Where I live, a lack of moisture in dryland fields is usually a bigger worry than too much.  In those cases, no-tilling into wheat stubble, and controlling the weeds with Roundup seems to provide the best yields.  Rotating beans or wheat helps control weeds, as it usually works best to till the field before sowing wheat.  However, I have one small 8 acre dryland field where lack of moisture isn't a problem, and I get the best yields tilling before planting, and running a cultivator through when the corn is between knee and waist high.  The yield gain more than offsets the extra fuel costs and tractor wear.  However, I can see where if a person was pressed for time, a quick dose of Roundup would get the weeds, and the yields would still be decent.

On my continuous corn, I have rootworm pressure, so the BT rootworm stuff is a godsend.  This is what I furrow irrigate, so tillage is a must, followed by a trip with a ridger when the corn is about waist high.  What I usually do here is go with a cheap pre-emerge herbicide with some residual action, and follow up with Roundup only if needed.  I do this more to prevent resistance than anything.  I could actually save $3-$5 an acre just going with the Roundup, but the guys who have been doing that for a long time are seeing weeds that Roundup won't kill anymore.  I don't have that problem yet.

Killing RR corn in RR beans is easy.  There is a herbicide that you can add to the Roundup that will kill the volunteer corn for just a few $ per acre.  I personally have cows clean up the downed ears, and have very, very little volunteer corn.

I think GMO crops are a great tool to have at a farmer's disposal.  Around here, in continuous corn, it still pays to do some sort of tillage, but for corn after beans, or in a spring like this one where planting time was hard to come by, going no-till, or minimum till allowed the farmers to get the crops in, and having RR corn meant the weeds could still be controlled.

[Ollie1983]

Thank you very much, this is very interesting for me, your systems seem a lot more diverse than I first thought. Obviously you guys have a greater range of prospective crops and the ability to irrigate if you so wish. I will definitely have to get a job out there and learn this stuff for real.

Thanks again. 

[Nebrfarmr]

I can't speak for anywhere else, but around here, double-cropping takes a few forms.

You can harvest corn, and often get winter wheat planted that fall, if the weather cooperates.  Then, after you harvest the wheat the next year, you can plant soybeans and still get a harvest, but at a lower yield than early-planted soybeans. 
Some people harvest soybeans, and immediately plant winter wheat.  After wheat harvest, they immediately plant soybeans.

Others harvest first cutting of alfalfa, and then plant something into it.

Basically, what we call double-cropping around here more or less means harvesting two crops off the same field in the same year.

Doesn't work too bad if you have enough moisture.

[Ollie1983]

Ah, so you would plant a crop ealt autumn, let it grow, harvest it again, early summer, then plant again, and harvest again in time for the bad autumn weather??

I have known one or two farmers manage something similar for their forage crops. They will have a field in grass, mow it early in the spring about April, put the chopper over , then immediately plough it, plant forage maize/corn for silage cut in the autumn of that same year.

Our summers are generally not hot enough to ripen crops fast enough for the system you describe I guess. I have one or two contacts who grow corn for the grain instead of for silage. Planted at roughly the same as for a forage crop, harvested very late, typically October/November using a combine with a corn header like you guys use over there. Usually the grain comes in at about 30% moisture and it is dried down to 15-16% moisture which costs a bomb. The very best growers of grain maize here will get 5 metric tonnes/acre before drying, which means about 3.7t/acre dried. Last year I purchased a lot at £200/t delivered, its probably worth 20-30 pounds a tonne premium over wheat.

That said, the late harvest and problematic weather we have makes it an unpopular crop to grow. 

[Nebrfarmr]

I wouldn't say double-cropping isn't without problems here, but that doesn't mean that people won't try it.  Some years, you have good weather, and really make a good profit double-cropping, and occasionally you get a bad year, where bad weather or an early frost makes your crop worthless after you put all the expense and work into planting it.  Most years, though, you can come out a little bit ahead, especially the wheat/soybeans people.

[nwobcw]

   I had near perfect weather last year although the crop was planted late but still had my most profitable year ever.  This year the opposite.  8 inches rain in May then 6 tenths in June and 3 tenths so far in July.  Needless to say we are suffering.

[nwobcw]

  Sorry.  Double cropping here means soybeans following wheat.

[nwobcw]

  We are very diverse.  It's a big country with differences in soils, temps, and rainfall, frost dates, you name it.