Ferrie: Sit Tight Until Soil Conditions Are Right For Planting

Patience is the operative word for restless farmers anxious to start planting but who face wet soil conditions. Ken Ferrie cautions that the conditions mean you need to be careful not to stumble at the starting gate this season.

“This has the potential to be one of the highest ROI years of your farming career, so remember this: We pay taxes by the calendar, but we prepare and plant corn based on the field soil conditions,” says Ferrie, Farm Journal Field Agronomist and owner of Crop-Tech Consulting, near Heyworth, Ill. 

Jumping the gun with spring tillage is costly. Ferrie says 80% of the compaction service calls he goes on each year can trace their roots back to the first pass the farmer made in the spring.

Compaction put in by a field cultivator is a bad gift that keeps on giving all year long. You can't take this gift back and get a redo.

Before you take off with spring tillage, he advises checking conditions just under your tillage depth. It’s a practice that he calls making a soil ribbon.

Here are the simple steps to make a Soil Ribbon:
1.    If you run a tillage tool 4” deep, dig down under that to about 5” deep. 
2.    Collect some soil in your hand and attempt to ball it up. 
3.    Once you get it balled up, squeeze it between your thumb and forefinger to see if you can make a ribbon about 1½” long. 

“If you can make a ribbon, your tillage will not only put in a density change, but it will also put in a compaction layer,” Ferrie says. “If you decide to move forward with tillage and planting, you probably will need to adjust your yield expectations later in the season as well as your marketing plan.”

Ferrie adds he has known growers who spent a lot of money and time the previous fall with deep tillage to wipe out what they had accomplished in one tillage shot the following spring. Don’t be that farmer.

“We don't let the calendar the coffee shop or neighbors dictate when we go to the field,” Ferrie says. “We do our own investigating and check all soil types, especially those in the lower topography parts of the field.”

Two other potential problems Ferrie says to avoid:
1.    Running a high-speed disk with gang angles can put in compaction layers. 
“They will be just a lot shallower, and the shallower the layer the more cost you will incur,” he says. “High-speed disks that you run on wet soils have become the main cause of a lot of our early-season service calls.” 

2.    In true vertical tillage, be mindful of wheel tracks.
“While the tillage tool won't put in a compaction layer, the soil needs to be firm enough to handle the weight of the tractor,” Ferrie says. “Wheel tracks are a gift you don’t want and that will show up all season long.”

To hear the complete Boots In The Field podcast for this week, click on the link below:

Ferrie: Which Crop to Plant First? Corn or Soybeans?

Ferrie: Don’t Rush to Replant Frosted Soybeans; Check their Viability First

Ferrie: Your Seed Company Called and Wants Its Corn Back. Say Thank You