Ross Bishop is a farmer in Wisconsin. He has 21 years of experience with the practice of no-tilling, and he sums it up in four words: challenges, adaptations, changes, and modifications.
Ross has wet soil conditions where he farms, and also has to deal with “multiple tricky soil types”. Some of his soil lacks topsoil over the bedrock. If tillage occurs in these soils, rock can break off and “lead to stone-filled fields”. As if that is not enough, Bishop also had to deal with water pollution concerns - 22,000 gallons of fuel were pumped into soil of his. Ross started farming in 1982. He originally had 300 acres that he tilled conventionally.
When he was a conventional tiller, he would “plow a 10-acre field, work it twice with tillage and then three of us would spend a full day picking up rocks before being able to plant corn”. Also due to his tillage practice, much valuable soil was eroding off the farm when “huge gully washes occurred”. At this point, Ross decided that he needed some changes in his tilllage practices.
In 1997, Biship was fully no-till after attending a No-Tillage conference in 1994 and successfully no-tilling 8 acres that year. No-till has worked well for his conditions and “by using no-tillage to save time, labor, fuel, equipment, soil and dollars, he’s saved enough money to buy more ground and expand to his current 700 acres while finishing 80 steers each year.”
The majority of area farmers maintain that their heavy clay soils have to be tilled since they take so long to warm up in the spring. But for Bishop, working with the same soils as the other growers, no-till “has made his soils mellower, more workable and higher yielding.” With conventional till, you could wreck your plow going through the bedrock and end up with “thousands of rocks to pick”. With his old conventional system, he had 3-foot drop terraces that were eroding and “‘washing away valuable soil and nutrients”. Sometimes he couldn’t get the plow to go deeper than 3 or 4 inches. But he doesn’t have those issues anymore with no-till.
Ross Bishop regularly soil tests for both primary and secondary nutrients. He is getting more aggressive when it comes to applying phosphorus, potassium, sulfur, zinc and boron. Ross applies 9-18-9 as starter in the furrow, with zinc and ammonium thiosulfate. “When corn is knee to hip high, he sidedresses 28% nitrogen (N) with an inhibitor, which is mixed with post-emergence herbicides”.
Bishop had applied 4-5 gallons/acre of starter fertilizer, but bumped that rate up to 10 gallons after noticing that corn yield contest winners applied up to 12 gallons. In addition to starter, he applies ¾ “of a gallon of zinc and a gallon of molasses per acre”. ““The sugar in the molasses wakes up the bugs in the soil and seems to have the same effect as one of us enjoying a sugar-filled soda or candy bar””. Bishop has checked, and the corn with molasses applied on it actually comes up 12 to 24 hours sooner than untreated ground. Zinc “helps the roots grow quicker”.
For Ross Bishop, adding a small amount of liquid potash boosted yields by 18 bushels per acre where potash was limited. He said, “On our farm, we need potash just as bad as N. Where we are deficient in potash, we’ve losing a huge amount of corn.”
When he was starting out in no-till, he planted corn in 20-inch rows at 36,000 seeds per acre, but after weak stalks were blown over by strong winds and thence the yield was affected, he has planted 34,000 plants per acre since.
Bishop also uses cover crops. 2016 was the ninth year for Ross that he has seeded cover crops after his wheat crop. He has found that cover crops boost his no-till corn and bean yields. Due to the fact that his cows don’t produce enough manure to apply 8 tons per acre, he uses cover crops to “add low-cost nutrients and improve organic matter. He also sees cover crops helping overcome major nitrate concerns in area water wells.” Typically, his cover crop mixes include annual ryegrass, radishes, hairy vetch and cowpeas. He has no tilled sorghum sudangrass to use it for cattle feed. Too, Ross has tried sunflowers, rapeseed, turnips and Austrian winter peas in cover crop mixes.
For him, the biggest thing is that cover crops create more soil organic matter. His annual ryegrass in Wisconsin will grow underneath the snow during the winter and creates a carpet on the ground that allows no-tilling into wetter soils much earlier. His radishes create better soil tilth and increase aeration and infiltration for Bishop.
An important thing in the practice of no-till is getting the seed placed accurately. In ‘97, Ross rebuilt a pair of Case 1200 planters into a single planter to plant corn in 20-inch rows. He added coulters, row cleaners, closing wheels and seed firmers. The purpose of these additions were to work more effectively with his variable soil and wet conditions.
When he no-tills wet ground in early spring, he says “the spider closing wheels help warm up the ground and avoid sidewall compaction. Adequate down pressure leads to a more accurate planting depth and drag chains help cover the seed trench with soil.”
Bishop plants soybeans 2 inches deep. His corn gets planted 2 ¼ to 2 ½ inches deep. He thinks that going deeper is better than planting corn shallow when no-tilling.
Ross Bishop is a farmer in Wisconsin that has found and had success with the tillage practice of no-till. He is convinced that, because of the soil conditions he works with, no-till is the best option for him.
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