No-Till Planting Considerations

Spring is here and everybody is busy planting their crops. Hopefully the planter and drill are in top-shape after doing the customary winter maintenance (see planter and drill maintenance). Now it is a matter of monitoring field conditions, adjust planter and drill settings, and check their performance as you go through the day.

Here are some key considerations:

1. Plant into standing and anchored residue instead of mowed residue. You will have less bunched-up, flat residue to cut and plant through, you avoid residue being dragged around by the planter, and residue does not get blown around by wind or moved by runoff on top of crop rows.
2. Prioritize fields on south-facing slopes with less residue. These fields will dry out and warm up quickly so should be planted first.
3. Prioritize well-drained and droughty soil. If you have a variety of soil types on your farm, you should plant the dryer soil first so the crops develop a vigorous root system quickly to survive drought periods in summer.
4. Monitor soil moisture conditions. Use the ball test to determine if soil is fit to be planted: Grab a handful of soil, knead it in your hand, and if it does not stick together but crumbles, the soil is fit to be planted. If you plant in soil that is too wet ('plastic' condition), you are creating sidewall compaction with the double disk openers that seedling roots will have trouble penetrating.
5. Deal with poorly distributed residue. Crop residue should be distributed evenly at harvest by the combine, but if this was not accomplished, you need to deal with it now by setting your row cleaners more aggressively. You want all the seeds to be subject to uniform temperature and moisture by cleaning the residue from the seed row if crop residue is not uniform.
6. Plant into green cover crops if possible – you need to make sure there is enough soil moisture at planting for your crop to germinate, so terminate the cover crop early in a dry spring but 'plant green' to get more growth out of the cover crop and have more mulch to improve soil structure and build soil life and soil organic matter if moisture is plentiful. Once killed, the cover crop mulch will help conserve moisture.
7. Check planting depth. Tie up a couple of seed closing wheels (on the planter, not on drills where the seed closing wheel also controls depth) to easily see seed spacing and depth in the open seed slot. Proper planting depth for corn is 1.5-2", for soybeans 1-1.5", for small grains 1-1.25" and for perennial forages 0.25-0.5" deep. Adjust as needed.
8. Make sure the seed slot is closed properly. It is essential to get good seed-to-soil contact, to avoid seedlings drying up in the open seed slot, and from suffering major damage due to things like slugs and birds eating your seeds. But make sure the seed slot closing wheels are not causing a lot of compaction on top of the seed. If you deal with marginal soil moisture conditions, you may look for spiked or fingered close wheels instead of solid rubber or cast iron closing wheels.

By checking planter and drill performance and making small adjustments from time to time, your no-till crops should come up uniformly so you are in shape for an excellent crop this year!

For more information and equipment pictures, check out:  Steps Toward a Successful Transition to No-Till