Montana Small Grain Guide

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Montana Small Grain Guide

• Pages 42-48

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Crop Rotation Sidney Research Center Results

• Highest annual yields were obtained with
  continuous cropping
• Residue Management for snow trapping was very
  important
• Adequate fertility weed control needed
• Rotating spring winter grains good for breaking
  disease weed cycles
• Residue from winter wheat can cause seedbed
  problems

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Crop Rotation Sidney Research Center Results

• Spring wheat stubble was the best for recropping
  fewer volunteer plants
• Wild oats, cheatgrass, pigeon grass volunteer
  grain were serious problems with continuous
  cropping
• Cephalosporium stripe when winter wheat grown in
  monoculture

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Crop Rotation

• Three year rotations worked best
• Spring wheat after oats or barley lowered wheat
  quality
• Feed grains after wheat wasnt a factor
• Forage crops (corn, oats, barley) can replace a
  spring grain
• stubble is insufficient for trapping snow

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Crop Rotation

• Sunflower or Safflower can replace spring grains
• can utilize Nitrogen that has leached below the
  root zone of spring grains

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Tillage Residue Management

• Can reduce wind water erosion
• Conserve moisture
• Trap snow
• Tillage implements determine degree of residue
  incorporation

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Conservation Tillage

• Stubble mulch minimum tillage while maintaining
  a protective residue cover
• Ecofallow uses chemicals and tillage together to
  control weeds conserve soil moisture
• No-till seed directly into residue of previous
  crop

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How much residue remains after tillage?

• Multiply bushels/acre you harvested by 100
• Multiply by the percentage from chart
• Moldboard Plow 5
• Chisel Plow 75
• Harrow 80
• Disk 50-60
• Rodweeder 85-90
• Multiply by factors for each subsequent pass

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How much residue remains after tillage?

• 20 bu. Per acre crop
• 20 X 100 2,000 lbs.
• Summerfallow using a chisel plow
• 2,000 X .75 1,500 lbs.
• 1,500 X .75 1,125 lbs.
• 1,125 X .75 843 lbs

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How much residue should be on the soil surface?

• 1,500 - 2,000 lbs per acre
• No tillage would be necessary from a 20 bu/acre
  crop
• With no-till drills and adapting drills, tillage
  to incorporate residue is NOT needed

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Affect of tillage on the soil

• Loosens soil in the plow layer
• Increases soil aeration
• Increases water infiltration
• Long-term results less aggregated, more compacted

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Soil Compaction

• 90 of soil surface is traversed by wheels during
  seeding
• 25 at harvest
• 60 when straw is baled and hauled off

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Deep Tillage

• Subsoiling breaks or shatters compacted soil
  layers (Hardpan)
• Done at 16 - 36 soil depth
• Should be done in fall when soil is fairly dry
• Need for subsoiling can be avoided where
  management practices prevent compaction
• reducing secondary tillage operations
• adding organic matter

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