I have been thinking again........

[Animal]

Corn should be in my crop rotation this year, but as dry as it has been and still is, I am considering Milo instead. As always I would appreciate any ideas and comments. I have never tried to grow milo before and have a 7200 planter, will I need different seed cups, or would it be better if I drilled it? What do I need to do to my combine to harvest it?
 

[Erik Ks farmer]

Personally given the genetics changes in corn in the last 20 years I am sticking to corn in our area. I saw a lot of milo an hour west that never headed out. My corn at least averaged 30. If you do plant milo put in 30's so you can cultivate it, I don't know how a 7200 is setup. Do you just have bean cups and corn meters or do you have plates and air delivery? Either way you'll need milo plates or cups. To harvest you'll want milo guards on you platform to keep the heads from falling out, there about 18" long and go over your existing guards. Google Richardson milo guards.
 

[IaGary]

Animal if you should decide to use your planter I have 8 Milo cups from a 7000. I don't know if they will fit your planter. These cups were used with the same holder as the JD soybean cup.

These were used very little.



I would sell them cheap.

Gary
 

[Animal]

Gary, Let me do some checking to see if they will work, if so I am sure that I will want them, and thank you!
 

[Animal]

Thanks for your input Eric, there is nothing fancy about my planter,just bean cups and meters..
 

[IaGary]

If you have the JD soybean cups for your 7200, I"m betting they will fit.You take the soybean cup out of the unit and install the milo cup. Worst part is shimming the cup to the size seed you are using. I have all the shims to go with the cups.

I"ll try to get a picture for you.Why does this site always change my ' to the double quote marks?

Gary
 

[MF Poor]

Not sure where you live, and that might influence decision, but, consider no tilling corn. We (central Kentucky) suffered drought issues as bad as anyone in the nation this year. We've had good success with no tilling in average years, even exceeding area yield averages most of the time. But this year, one of the advantages of no till really showed up. For a number of reasons, no tilling performs better in dry conditions. And the hybrids available that are catered to no tilling seem to perform better than most in dry conditions.

As an experiment, and to play around with a new (to me) tractor and chisel plow I bought at an auction, I did 2 fields half conventional, half no till. Total acreage was around 60. (30 NT/30conv) In both fields, the no till out yielded conventional corn by more than 30 bu/ac. This is an extreme case with the level of drought we had in 2012, but I'm convinced there is a difference in most years.

I've since sold the chisel plow. Back to what has proven most profitable over the long haul for me....no tilling.
 

[Brendon-KS]

My father-in-law, who's in his mid 70's, has been farming in central Kansas his whole life and is a believer in playing it safe. For a number of years we had above-average summer moisture and the milo acreages decreased while corn got more popular. He would tell me "these younger farmers growing all this corn don't remember how it can get so dry . . ." and the past two years he was right. Dryland corn around here has been a disaster (0 to 30 bu/acre) regardless of farming practice and even the milo was severely stressed. But, the guys who got their milo in at the right time at least had something to harvest (some fields even looked pretty good all things considered) and their cost per acre was a lot less than it was for corn.