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  • From: <sunnfarm AT verizon.net>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] no till organic field corn
  • Date: Tue, 07 Feb 2006 09:03:48 -0600 (CST)

From: Sam White <cedarrockcsa AT yahoo.com>
Date: Mon Feb 06 13:23:52 CST 2006
To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [Market-farming] no till organic field corn

Thanks for the good info, Steve. I found some info
about the mechanical rolling of rye on newfarm.org.

I was thinking along the lines of standing barley. I
here they are doing this in the tidewater area of
Virginia, but I don't know how hardy it is.

Its a common practice around here in southern NJ to notill corn into standing
barley or wheat covercrops. But we always burn back the barley with roundup
or paraquat. I can see rolling a legume like vetch but I am not so sure about
grasses. Grasses can bounce back from any abuse and compete with the corn...
Bob.
Sunny Meadow Farm
Bridgeton, NJ.

Thanks,

Sam

--- Steve Diver <steved AT ncat.org> wrote:

> As an alternative to managing living mulches via
> suppression
> with "herbicides", Vern Grubinger's graduate work at
> Cornell
> University is worth noting... but keep in mind it
> relates to
> "sweet corn."
>
> White clover was multivated or rototilled with the
> middle tines
> removed, leaving strips of live clover growing
> between the corn
> rows - a procedure called "partial rototilling."
>
> To suppress excessive re-growth of the living mulch,
> white
> clover was partially rototilled two weeks after corn
> emergence.
>
> Waiting until the fourth or sixth week after sweet
> corn
> emergence to perform partial rototilling was less
> effective
> (i.e., too much competition reduces corn yields,
> eh?).
>
>
> Grubinger, Vern P. and Peter L. Minoti. 1990.
> Managing white
> clover living mulch for sweet corn production with
> partial rototilling.
> American Journal of Alternative Agriculture. Vol. 5,
> No. 1. p. 4-12.
>
>
> The above method is based on intercropping a living
> cover
> crop in-between the sweet corn crop.
>
> There is much more to understanding the factors and
> methods that make intercropping successful or a
> downright tangled mess that stunts crop growth.
>
> You can contact ATTRA and I'll set you up with
> enough
> reading material of field trials and methods to
> ponder for
> many weeks and months. It depends on your
> geographical
> location, cropping season, cover crop species, tools
> and
> techniques, and "timing."
>
> That is in response to planting "into" a cover crop;
> i.e.,
> interseeding, undersowing, intercropping with living
> mulches and so forth.
>
> But the method that seems most practical these days
> is to mechanically kill a high biomass cover crop to
> create a weed suppressive mulch, followed by a
> no-till planter. As somebody suggested, however,
> you will often need to follow up with some kind of a
> knock-down for emerging weeds, such as directed
> "flaming" or whatnot.... so it will take some
> tinkering.
>
> What kind of non-spray no-till were you thinking
> about.
>
> Steve Diver
>
>
>
> >Hi, I'm new to the list and this is a little off
> >topic.
> >
> >My goal is to convince my father-n-law, a beef
> farmer,
> >to go organic. Half are grass-fed, but the other
> >half are still being fed a minimal amount of grain
> >with their haylage and hay.
> >
> >He insists on growing corn, as most of his
> customers
> >are looking for a nice roast with plenty of fat.
> >
> >Anyone here have experience with no tilling corn
> into
> >stands of barley or other cover crops and not
> >spraying?
> >
> >thanks,
> >
> >--------
> >Sam White
> >Cedar Rock Farm/CSA
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
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>
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