No Till Notes: 'Enjoyable Meeting'

I just got home from a real enjoyable no till field day meeting at Pat and Shane Cullan’s farm south of Chadron. We had a nice turnout and some good conversation throughout the morning on the benefits of continuous no till crop production on dry land acres in their area. I want to thank Shane and Pat for allowing us to use their farm as a starting point for the field day.

The Nebraska Environmental Trust supports these field days with grant funding through the Nebraska No till Cadre. If you would like to host a field day at your farm or like to see a field day in your area, please contact me and we can begin work on putting together a no till field day. The Panhandle No till Partnership hosts these field days and we try to spread them out throughout the Panhandle during the summer months.

I also need to thank Don Churchill with First National Bank North Platte and the Upper Niobrara White Natural Resources District for bringing lunch to the Cullan farm. We had a nice picnic lunch in the yard following the field day.

A few producers have moved to continuous no till crop production in this region of the Panhandle. We visited a lot about the benefits of crop rotation in controlling weed and disease issues common to our area. Volunteer rye, goat grass and cheatgrass are problematic weeds in the conventional winter wheat/ summer fallow crop rotation.

Crop rotation will go a long way in minimizing these weeds by breaking up the crop cycles between winter wheat crops. By adding spring and summer crops to the rotation these weeds can be controlled so they don’t go to seed for several years. As long as the soil remains undisturbed and new seed isn’t brought up into the germination zone the weed pressure will slowly diminish.

We also visited about disease pressure in winter wheat. Where producers are using a chemical fallow leaving the winter wheat stubble in place without tillage the previous winter wheat stubble increases the chances for tan spot in the growing wheat crop. Without more diversified cropping rotations diseases such as tan spot may be more prevalent than in conventionally tilled wheat.

A good crop rotation with spring crops such as field peas and summer crops like corn and proso millet will break up these disease problems when grown between winter wheat crops. Good crop rotations may also aid in controlling the stem sawfly populations that are causing a lot of concern in our area with winter wheat production.

We also had a nice conversation about how much agriculture has changed over the past several years. I suspect most folks driving down the highway looking out over the country side probably assume the landscape and cropping practices haven’t changed much. The reality is that agriculture like any other business is constantly on the move as better technologies and production practices are adopted in an attempt to become more efficient and profitable.

I couldn’t help but notice how beautiful the countryside looks this year. We’ve been blessed with adequate moisture and good growing conditions to start this farming and ranching season. There are pockets where the bad hail storms have ruined the crops, but the overall countryside looks as lush and green as it gets this year.

I’ll be attending more field days this summer and hope to see you at one of these field days. I always enjoy the conversation and listening to ideas from area producers on how they produce their crops. These meetings are always informal and informational so I would encourage you to attend a no till field day in your area.