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OT: spraying vs. cultivating.

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D

Dairy Farmer in WI

Member
got to thinkin' today. Last year it cost me over $5000 to have all my corn and beans sprayed. granted they did spray more then once. i have a 4 row cultivator for my JD 4010. would it be worth it to cultivae instead of spraying this coming year? with a diesel i see no apparent way of using $5000 worth of fuel. i also have a 4 row for an M farmall so i could have 2 guys cultivaing. just really don't wanna spend the kinda money again this sumer. just planning ahead
what do you guys think?
thanks much
DF in WI
 
Was just talking to my cousin yesterday about the same thing. He says even with todays fuel costs he can still cultivate for about 75 cents/acre. Sure can't spray for that!!

I know others are going to say you have to take into consideration tractor and equipment wear and tear plus your time, but it is still a lot cheaper than spraying.
 
$5000 :shock: Dang, how many acres was that over? My thoughts are if you aren't covering many acres, I'd cultivate. I've yet to hear any weed resistance issues against steel. If it were me however, I would put a spray tank or two on the cultivator and do two or three jobs at once. In other words, cultivate and spray or sidedress at the same time. Are these cultivators midmount or rear mount? Id say do what feels right. My Thoughts :oops:

JoshuaGA
 
It would be fine & dandy if your corn & beans were check planted.Then you could cultivate both ways.Pretty common years back.

Now days,weed pressure where cultivator can't reach and between plants would mean a big loss in yield.

In corn,we usually rotory-hoe early to get the small pin weeds,then later,cultivate once and spray once.

If you still don't want to spray,consider going certified organic and reap the benefits in premiums. ~brad
 
I think there is a three year "decontamination" period you have to sit through to be certified organic. A friend did it and grew his first organic crop this last year. 35bu. soybean yield he got $21/bu. roasted and the buyer paid the trucking.
 
Hi Bradly,

I just gotta jump in here and believe me this is not meant in a personal way in any way, shape or form.

However, the same thing has happend to the cultivator that has happened to the plow.

PEOPLE DO NOT KNOW HOW TO OPERATE THEM ANYMORE!

Places where a cultivator can't reach? You are kiddin', right?

Allan
 

In my opinion, cultivation damaged the roots of the crop, as well as weeds...

But that might be a worse problem in a very arid area like ours - than where it rains all the time.

Roundup ready crops sure make a farmer look great, but I always thought in corn, at least, I paid a premium in reduced yields due to the variety...

Plus, I always just absolutely hated dinging any of the crop with a cultivator... That just drove me up the wall!!

Howard
 
yeah i never heard of that either. my dad still cultives with a 2row he never had a problem as long as he keeps up with the weeds. but if he don't cultivate fer a week or 2 then he has to cultivate like mad.
have a good one Allan
DF in WI
 
Lately in my opinion, in Michigan it has been too dry to cultivate in the summer. This past year if you would have cultivated it would have hurt you more than helping because of the moisture loss.

Granted I don't know what John730D's cousin is running for equipment but we can't cultivate for under roughly $3 an acre (3020 burns around 5 gallons an hour, and can go over about 5 acres per hour, running 6 row) Then you still don't get the weeds in between the corn. Plus you lose a lot of your moisture when you cultivate and if we have another dry year like last year (Michigan) that hurts in a bad way. We don't grow any round up ready corn but weeds aren't really a problem in corn. Just sprayed once with conventional and let it go. In a bad wet year where the clay will cap we will cultivate but we only touch that thing about once every 5 years though.

For soybeans we grow all round up ready and plant 7.5 inch rows. If we wait until the beans have started to fill the rows before we spray the first time we usually get away with only spraying once. By the time the weeds start to come back they are shaded out by the beans since they are planted so close. We use generic round up with a surfactant and an anti-foam and in the end with fuel and all runs about $10 an acre. Most years we only spray once, some years twice but they are so much cleaner when you combine them it's amazing. You don't get moisture loss in the soil which helps your yield and with really clean beans you can combine them faster using less fuel and less time.

So for us, the difference between spraying and cultivating is around $7 an acre, which with todays prices means about 2 bushel of corn or a bushel of beans and I feel we lose that when we cultivate so I don't think it's worth it. But we do our own spraying. If you are paying someone else, then it becomes a different story.

That's my 2 cents. I don't like to cultivate. Not the actual cultivating itself, but the side effects, I would rather spray.
 
Let me guess Allen, set your sweeps to where you can just slip a matchbox through them? Drive slow and steady and you do good. All the cultivators around me came out last year. D*** Palmer Amaranth Pigweed, we have resistance to ALS and some comfirmed cases of Roundup resistance and even a few ALS/Roundup resistance. Fun fun :x . Spraying works okay, but hand, hoe, or steel is hard to build resistance to, unless you run a danish tine cultivator. Does a bueatiful job in 1" to 3" weeds, anything bigger than 6" it plows around. Good luck with the cultivator. BTW, the matchbook advice was from my grandad. Myy dad spent many a day on a 35 Ferguson plowing peanuts and corn like that.

JoshuaGA
 
Just remember when the corn is too tall to cultivate there is nothing to stop the weeds and if you have good soil you will have good weeds. So you are saying 40 perA for the spray thats not many bu at 5 per bu. Weeds can cut the yeilds more than that.
 
$5000 divided by 120 acres equals $41.66 per acre. Thats a bunch of money. Maybe $10/A to $12/A of that went to whoever did the spraying and the rest was herbicide cost of $30/A to $32/A .

Buying your own sprayer has about the best payback of any machine you can buy for the farm.
You herbicide cost just seems a little high to me but I don't know what it costs in your area.

If you do decide to cultivate, putting down something preplant, like Harness will help with the grass, but you'll still have the large broadleaves to deal with. You might get by cultivating once this way.

Before dad used herbicides he would cultivate three times and then he made my sister and me walk the corn in 95 degree July temps, to pull cocleburs. He paid us a penny a plant. That was 45 years ago and today I still dread going in a corn field in the middle of the summer. To me, herbiciede are a godsend.Jim
 
Hey Allan,can't reach meaning you can only git so close to the plants before tearin 'em out or damaging corn roots in more mature plants.

I leave a slight forgiving "cushion" on either side of shovels so I ain't so white knuckled at the end of the day.

Cultivators are making a comeback 'round here as is the moldboard plow.Those oldtimers weren't so dang dumb after all! LOL!
 
Over here in SE MN in the hills if you cultivate the soil the depth you cultivate is on its way to the gulf at the first rain. NO ONE except a few organos cultivate anymore. Allan I've never seen a cultivator that can get the weeds in the row. My neighbor had the brilliant idea to switch to organic a few years ago. He rotary hoes 2X then cultivates 2X. In the last four years with the rains we have had I think he has lost close to a foot of soil on the hills. Then there is the giant ragweed problem. This year his beans went 3 Bu under the 8 Ft tall weeds. Corn was not much better. He blames Bush for tying up his mexican weed pullers at the border, LOL. Cultivating may have its place on level land but for sure not in HEI land. With beans at $12+ and corn at $6 a few weeds missed by the cultivator will cost you big time in lost yield. Spraying always pencils out for me.
 
Sorry Brad,

Like I say, nothing personal at all. However, that is the classic "How not to do it".

There should be no "cushion" in any way shape or form. Every inch of the field should be "covered".

On first cultivation and when it is small, that plant should be surrounded with dirt clear up to it's sworel and standing all alone within the row with not a weed in sight. :>)

Allan
 
How tall is "too tall"? We used to cultivate with narrow front high wheel tractors and get cultivation done up pretty close to three feet. By that time, the corn had completely canopied over the rows and there were no more weeds to speak of. No sunlight for them to grow. Now days, with narrow rows, I doubt that you'd have to be cultivating corn that high.
 
Ain't been brave enough to try it, but sense we have to pull a subsoiler to get a yield, heres my idea. Have a small grains crop, cut it for grain or hay, rip strip into it, laying down yellow herbicide in the row, planting, and then wait as long as possible or sidedress time, run sidedress on High Residue cultivator, and band chemical behind and in row. By the way brad, it wasn't Allen that said the matchbox thing, it was me. Meant more in jest but you get the picture. Set the sweeps as close as you can bear. Herbicide resistance ha me rethinking weed control, not cost. Besides, I don't mind spraying, but I like instant results, not wating to see whether or not my spraying worked!

JoshuaGA
 
Nope,

Like I say, I think it is becoming a dying art.

Slowing down and lifting the cultivator out of the ground is the wrong thing to do.

Stick 'er in and make it dig. Speed throws dirt; dirt covers weeds.

First trip across should be running about 5 to 7 mph. By the way, Sweeps are only used to knock out the centers; nothing to do with the close stuff.

Allan
 
Some say rotary hoes work good when the corn is small. You can go fast with a rotary hoe whereas the cultivator will be slower and you might not be able to keep up with the weeds. I never used one although I could pick one up for a song. (That might be a telling piece of evidence aginst using one). I guess if I used one I would probably put down a few more kernals in anticipation of tearing some of them up. They say to "go as fast as you can and never look back".
 
Shouldn't be too much different in WI than here, when my corn's ready to cultivate I should be cutting hay. If I'm cultivating instead, it's going to cost me more to buy protein to replace the lost quality in my balage. I can spray 500 acres of corn in 3 days. Cultivating that would take me.... dang I don't have that long.
 
We all live in different places and we all have to do what we have to do to make things work.

However, if you have never seen a cultivator "get between the plants", you've never seen one set right and/or run correctly.

Allan
 
Allan, don't be sorry,nuthin' personal taken,just the way we do it.Keep cultivator out of field at earlier plant stages.Works well fer us.Average last fall 214/acre.
 
We have a few here in IA where i live playing around with organic and like you said weeds are so high cant see the beans and who wants to run a combine in all weeds and a little beans.
 
Cultivating corn is certainly a lost art art. I only cultivated about 40 acres last year and I dont know where I find anyone around here who did half as much. Sure does make a field look nice!

DSCN0468.jpg
 
I guess cross check would work to a point but if the weeds are as tall or taller than the corn no cultivator that I know of can cut the weeds in row and leave the corn plants undamaged. The weeds we have around here come up with or before the corn and rapidly out grow it plus weeds like woolly cup grass and water hemp come on late when the corn is to tall to cultivate. Like you said different places different problems.
 
Don't quite understand what Allen is saying, perhaps he is thinking a rolling cultivator that has no spaces, works on corn that just broke through the ground, not on standing corn crops where you have to follow the row? He doesn't get much rain, maybe he doesn't get many weeds either, whole different game here where we get 40 inches a year & weeds sprout all summer long.

'Here' it is an art of timing, folks are used to spraying and so they wait until they see weeds - all is lost at that point!

Work the ground, wait a week & hope for a rain, harrow the grownd shallow to kill the weed flush, then first plant. Can't be the 1st one out in the fields planting.

Plant the corn or beans, harrow (drag) it when the sprout is starting to crack the soil, corn can even be sticking out a bit. Kills all the hair weeds that you don't see yet.

Then row crop cultivate every 7 days later, if you see weeds you waited too long.

You are always killing little bitty hair like weed sprouts. Big weeds don't die well. If you got to big weeds, you are losing.

The last time or 2 you can drive faster, throw dirt around the crop and try to smother those weeds in the row. The first time, you are crawling slow, or you smother all the crop too.

As mentioned, this comes about the same time as doing hay, so it comes down to time. You have enough people to get it all done around the rain too?

--->Paul
 
Here on hells half acre all we do is cultivate. I bought an AC G just for that. Most of my cultivating is done with Farmall 140. I am not as tight as a match box like mentioned below. Tried a 3pth cultivator and did not like it. Also have front cultivators for AC D-10, need to find engine block mounting hardware before I can use them. Never have been able to locate rear assy.

On my 140 the the sweeps leave quite some play to allow for my boys to run the rig thru the fields. Initially I run hillers in place of the front sweeps to cover small weeds between the plants and then keep it knocked back with sweeps.

As also said if you let the weeds get in it then you play catch up all yr!!
 
So.... yer pullin' t*ts on about a hundred head?? and you've got time to run a cultivator?
The neighbours do that here, only they grow vegetables along with milking. When they should be chopping they're out planting cabbage and cultivating turnips. I'd suspect that the game would be the same for you with corn.
I'm not a fan of cultivators at all. I can't say that I've ever used one any great deal, so I certainly don't know much about them... and honestly have no interest in them.
We put down 1.5 L/acre of Prime Extra II Magnum in one pass with the planter. The chopper is the next trip. I can't see me growing corn if I had to cultivate it. The rocks would be the number one reason not to. I shudder at the thought of a set of Allan's sweeps...

Rod
 
A shallow layer of loose soil that is achieved by cultivation will actually help stop moisture evaporation from the soil below it and also make the soil absorb rain better.
 
I do both - put down a half-rate of Harness pre-emerge, cultivate it once, then spray either glyphosate or Steadfast/Callisto (depending on which farm it is). I have a JD 725 front-mount cultivator that I modified to fit on my 7410 (2WD with cab). I have a lot of contour rows and it works great. Like a previous poster said, there ain't any weeds that are resistant to cold steel. Maybe if everyone still had to make time to cultivate all their crops we wouldn't be sitting here bellyaching about the guys who farm half the county and still have time to be gone on vacation half the summer!
 

Nice pic Bill! I saved it as my desk top. You have a great looking field there. I am no way on a scale as big as that. Thanks
 
And a great big atta-boy. :>)

Knew there had to be someone out there that still knew how to run a cultivator. Looks good!

Allan
 
Thats right allen, let the dirt roll. If you ain't covering a plant or two now and then you ain't covering weeds. The plants will jump right back out if to much dirt covers them.
 
Just curious Allan,how do you keep from covering up 4-5"tall corn up running 5-7MPH which is faster then a M will run in 4th wide open or a JD 620-720 will in 5th.Maybe 2 1/2-3 tops with shields.
 
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