Improving Planter Uniformity for Better Crop Consistency
This week I wanted to follow up on last week’s episode and dive a little deeper into what creates variability when we’re sitting in that combine seat and we’re looking at that 13th row and what creates consistency. From those factors that create consistency, how do we ensure that we see that consistency in our field. One of the things that I think you know probably creates the most variability in the field is soil conditions at planting. It’s really important and I think most guys do a great job at this but it’s very important to make sure that you have consistent soil moisture and consistent temperature when you go to the field to plant. One of the ways to ensure that moisture and temperature is more consistent throughout the field is to plant deeper. Generally two and a quarter inches would be optimal planting depth but on dry land I like to push that to two and half or two and three quarters in order to get more consistent soil moisture and more consistent soil temperature. When you have that more consistent soil moisture and temperature, you get seedlings that emerge more consistently throughout the field because they have the moisture available to them to germinate and the temperature is accurate, high enough or stable enough to cause that seedling to germinate and grow up through that two and three quarter inch of soil. Soil conditions at planting can really cause some of that inconsistency if you’re seeing it in the field. What you’re going to see if your soil conditions are inconsistent or if your seed quality is maybe poor, is you’re going to see more gaps in your stand or you’re going to see more inconsistency in that ear height and plant size. We know that a plant that emerges 24 hours after the ones around it is going to have an ear that’s about 1/3 smaller than the rest of them. Sometimes when you’re walking through the field and you’re looking at those ears you can’t really tell that they’re smaller but if you pull them off and you weigh those ears the grain weight of those ears is significantly less on those that emerge just 24 hours after the ones around it. I mentioned seed quality here and the reason I bring that up is some of the problems that you see in your stand could be caused by seed quality. As a general rule the industry does a pretty good job at quality assurance and an excellent job of quality assurance from a warm germination standpoint but there can be big differences in cold germ there could be some differences in vigor of those seeds and that can be tested by different labs. What you’ll see typically if you have a seed quality issue is large gaps in your stand or you’re going to see that there’s a big difference in the plant size. What I’m talking about as large gaps is two or three plants missing in a row or big difference in plant size is plants that are at least three leaves behind the other plants. What we know about those big gaps is generally if you dig down to those seeds, you can find maybe a rotted seed, maybe it was damaged in processing or just didn’t have a good cold germ on that seed quality. If you see a plant that’s significantly smaller than the rest, the issue there would be that seed emerged way later. Why would a seed emerge later than the others around it? Probably because it didn’t have as good germination or it wasn’t put in the same conditions.
When we look at how we can do a better job of eliminating the variability that we see in that 13th row, the number one thing that we can do is make sure that we’re going to the field with high quality seed. That was one of the pieces when we made this change to Axis; we had a lot of confidence in the seed quality because of the cold germ requirements of the seed that gets put in an Axis bag. Another thing that we can do is check that our planter settings are accurate for the seed that we’re carrying. On your planter settings we have vacuum, speed, we have population bounce, things like that. One of the questions is how can we check some of those things or is there technology out there that can help us do a better job of checking those things? I’m a big believer in using technology to inform our decisions and I really think there’s a lot of data out there that says planter technology pays. Things like individual row down force are helping us get that seed placed equally at the same depth regardless of soil compaction and when we get that seed placed at the same depth we’re getting into that more consistent soil moisture and more consistent soil temperature. Then there’s other technologies out there that kind of help you take a look at it across the whole field and so SmartFirmer from Precision Planting. This is one really neat tool to make sure that you’re getting into that uniform temperature and moisture. SmartFirmer is telling you whether your furrow is clean so if you’re getting the trash out of there so you don’t have stubble and stuff like that down there along your seed that can cause seedling disease. It’s monitoring uniformity of your furrow trench so if you have a nice uniform furrow trench you’re going to get that seed placement more equally throughout the field and then it’s measuring soil temperature, organic matter and cation exchange capacity. Some of these things aren’t things that we can really change on the go while we’re in the field but there are pieces that might inform a better decision about some other management practices that we’re using. Soil moisture and soil temperature those are two big ones that I really think it’s awesome to have a good read on while you’re in the field. If you don’t have SmartFirmer then how do you get a good read on? Well you need to apply the principles of consistency when you go out to the field to check conditions before you plant so when you take your thermometer out there and you’re sticking it in the ground,
If you have a mark on that thermometer so you’re always sticking it two and a half inches in the ground in every location that you monitor throughout that field. Are you checking both the location that has heavy stubble cover and one that’s bare to get a read of the average across that field or are you just looking at the conditions and the good area or the bad area. Then soil moisture, same thing, when you’re digging to check that soil moisture in the field are you able to dig down and make sure that you’re always digging to that two and a half inches and evaluating that soil moisture in more than one area at that same depth in the field. When you do that you really get those consistent stands because you’ve done a good job or better job of consistently evaluating the soil conditions at planting. The big thing here is there’s always variability in the field and so how do we use a consistent approach to eliminate some of that variability? That really comes down to how we monitor those pieces that we’re looking for that are important to getting a consistent stand. Soil moisture and soil temperature, the two big ones like I said they with SmartFirmer, can give you back some data on furrow uniformity. When you’re looking at that furrow uniformity that’s going to tell you whether your seed is getting placed at the same depth throughout the field because if you have clods that are falling back into that furrow that’s when you lose some uniformity there. That’s really all I’ve got for you today just talking a little bit about how you get a more consistent stand so when you’re in the combine seat you can look at that 13th row and know ok I’ve got that planter dialed in next year these are the little minor tweaks i’m going to make to get even a better stand.
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