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market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] Was hairy vetch and corn, now soybeans and corn

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  • From: Robert Schuler <sunnfarm AT verizon.net>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Was hairy vetch and corn, now soybeans and corn
  • Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 11:58:09 -0600 (CST)

Back before herbicides were used in corn they used to broadcast ryegress into
corn after the last cultivation. I have done this with perennial ryegrass. I
have a small battery powered spinner spreader mounted in front of my tractor
so I can seed during last cultivation. I have found that ryegrass will grow
even in the presence of the Atrizine Dual herbicides I apply as pre-ermergent
have never seen this done with soybeans probably because they will freeze in
the fall leaving no ground cover.
BTW in 2006 I applied perennial rye in the fall. Plowed it under in spring
of 2007 planted corn applied herbicides and even post emergent herbicides and
found the corn field completely covered with a thick carpet of ryegrass after
harvest at no fault of my own. I haven't got a clue how that came to be...
Bob.

I undersow our sweet corn about 30 days after sowing the corn, at the
second cultivation, with soybeans. This works in the sense that the
soybeans will grow in the partial shade, and will take the foot
traffic of harvesting. I don't know how much nitrogen the soybeans
provide. On paper they're not as good as many other legumes at
providing nitrogen or biomass, but they are a warm season crop. They
do help keep the weeds down (we used to have a dreadful pigweed and
smartweed problem). We use soybeans rejected by our tofu-making
business. A bigger growing forage soybean might be better. I just till
with a walk-behind rototiller, broadcast the beans, then till them in
about an inch.

Pam, Twin Oaks, central Virginia, zone 7
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