-Michael O'Donnell here with Purdue Extension.
We are at Oak Ridge Farms in Pendleton, Indiana.
That is just a little bit East, Northeast, of Indianapolis.
It's May 14th, beautiful day, beautiful day for planting.
John Paul Franks who's owner-operator [and] the farmer here at Oak Ridge farms is out drilling soybeans today.
This is a transitional field so it's being transitioned to certified organic production.
Last year it was a prevent plant field. We had those super wet conditions in the spring of 2019
that prevented John Paul from being able to get in here and get a crop in in 2019
so he managed weeds with some mowing some disking some fallow period.
But then that gave the opportunity for him to set up with a really good
cereal rye cover crop for 2020 transitional soybeans.
He applied a ton and a half of poultry litter, ahead of drilling the Elbon variety
cereal rye at 150 pounds, so about 3 bushel,
and we can- that was in drilled in early October,
Could have gotten it in earlier, but got it in at a decent time
with that good fertility and we can see the result.
This has headed out good consistent stand,
you know the rye in this field varies from four foot to
five or more feet tall, so we've got a lot of biomass that hopefully
can provide that depressive effect on the weeds throughout the full season.
Also helps to moderate moisture by keeping that soil
covered and moderate soil temperatures by keeping that soil covered.
So ideally, John Paul would have kind of come in here when the rye was at boot stage
We're obviously beyond boot stage, we can see that we're headed out
Soil conditions weren't right at boot, but he's using
he's he's dealing with what mother nature dealt him.
Out today drilling soybeans at about 200,000
seeds per acre, so pretty high seeding rate
to account for less than ideal seed to soil contact with the drill
possibly some losses from, from uh, the roller crimping but really it's going to
help give him a good quick canopy since he's deciding to drill
he won't be coming in here with a high residue cultivator or anything just
getting those beans drilled roller crimping the rye to terminate it
and those will be the operations to get this, this crop established.
So again, ideally would have come in here when the rye was at boot stage instead
of headed out. Couldn't do that soil conditions weren't
right, so he's going to have to have some adaptive management.
When we plant the beans at boot stage, we would then have about 30 to 45 days
until full anthesis when that rye can be roller crimp
terminated or mechanically terminated and the timing when seeding the
soybeans at boot stage until full anthesis,
the beans would have been about v1 v2 growth stage where they're very-
they're not vulnerable, they can withstand that roller crimping action and keep growing.
With seeding the beans when the rye is headed out,
John Paul is going to have to be a little more adaptive,
might consider coming in and rolling this rye down
with his I&J roller-crimper before the beans emerge
see if he can terminate some of it, knowing that once the rye
reaches anthesis those beans might be in a vulnerable stage.
so then he could possibly come in once those beans reach v1 v2
roller crimp again to try to get a more full or higher rate of termination on
this rye. So gonna have to use some adaptive
management in this no-till transitional soybean scenario.
-We can see ...
John Paul running ... the drill there off towards the woods edge,
into this standing cereal rye cover crop
Here's an area where he's already made some passes, we can see
how this headed out rye gets knocked down,
but ... a lot of it's going to come back up where it's knocked down and
we can see even across other areas of the drill where it's still standing, this is where
the tire tracks were so obviously the tire track lay some of that rye down, but
we're going to see some of that come back up, except perhaps where the
cultures of the drill slice some of that rye.
So it's going to be interesting to see how this field develops this growing season.
With planting green into cereal rye cover crop
for a no-till transitional soybean crop.