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Continuous Cereal Production in an Intermediate Rainfall ZoneMark Sheffels, Lincoln County Producer I am a fourth generation Lincoln county farmer in the state of Washington. Our family farm is divided between three locations. The two locations that I manage consist of 6,500 acres in the Wilbur and Davenport areas. Wilbur is in a 12" rainfall zone and consists of mostly Bagdad silt loam soils. The terrain is rolling with very few hills exceeding a 20% slope. The Davenport location is in a 16" rainfall zone made up of Broadax and Hanning silt loam soils. It has many more hills than Wilbur, some exceeding a 25% slope. Prior to 1996 both locations were in a three year rotation of wheat-barley-summerfallow. In dryer years Wilbur would sometimes go to a wheat-fallow two year rotation. In 1996 we broke into spring with a full six foot moisture profile. Fallowing seemed like a waste of moisture so I moved all my conventional equipment to Davenport to seed fence to fence. At Wilbur I hired a custom operator to direct seed fence to fence. All acres were seeded to Baronesse two row barley. Wilbur averaged over two tons per acre and Davenport over two and a half tons per acre. In the fall of 1996 roughly two thousand acres was seeded to recrop winter wheat by custom hired direct seed drills with high disturbance openers. By the spring of 1997 I purchased my own direct seed drill which I continue to use today. The drill is a flexicoil 5000 with has been fitted with Andersen openers that are followed by five and one half inch packers on twelve inch spacing. This drill has performed very well with the exception of sharp changes in terrain. The drill puts seed too shallow in low spots because of its thirteen foot bridge between front caster tires and rear packers. High spots would be very little problem except for the fact that our fields at Wilbur are mostly terraced. This forces us to seed out terraces if we approach them at too steep of an angle. Our delivery system started out as a 1720 flexicoil cart following a bridgecart. This combination allowed us to continue using aqua ammonia as our primary source of nitrogen, and 16-20-0-14 as our source of phosphorous and sulfur. To manage the hills our 85c Challenger tractor is fitted with two 300 gallon nose tanks that we open up from the cab once our cart becomes low on product. This past year we replaced the 1720 air cart and the bridgecart with a three tank John Deere cart that we modified before it was sent to the field. The frame was stretched fourteen inches and the 120 Bu rear tank was replaced with a 200 Bu tank modified to hold liquid rather than dry product. This cart change has transferred weight to the tractor and improved our capabilities in the hills. When I first began to annual crop we changed to a four year rotation to minimize the impact of cereal plant diseases. Initially that rotation consisted of three straight spring barley crops followed by re-crop winter wheat. That worked very well through the first rotation. The second time through the rotation we had barley survive the winter in our winter wheat. Because of that, we now plant two barley crops followed by a spring wheat which is followed by winter wheat. The last summer fallow on our farm was in 1995. The one exception is a piece of land that was in fallow when it was purchased in 2000. Yields have been very good at Davenport. Barley has average over two tons per acre every year since we first direct seeded in 1997. Re-crop Winter Wheat has ranged from a low of 60 Bu/acre to a high of 70 Bu/acre. At Wilbur production has varied more. Barley has been over two tons, but it averaged only 1,300 lbs in 2001 under a severe drought. Spring and recrop winter wheat have yielded about the same at Wilbur with a high of 70bu/ac and a low of 25bu/ac. Fertility of course varies with conditions but ranges from 70 lbs to 100 lbs of nitrogen at Davenport. One exception was 120 lbs in 1997, but that covered yields exceeding two and a half tons of barley. Wilbur rates stay in the 50 to 70 lb range for spring crop unless we crop a high protein wheat which will get over 100 lbs. Phosphorous and Sulfur rates stay at about 14 lbs and 11 lbs respectively. Broadleaf weed pressures have not increased but they have changed. At times fields have been clean enough to not spray at all. We now see more late germinating broadleaf's such as Russian thistle and China lettuce at Wilbur, and Dog Fennel and China lettuce at Davenport. I am confident we will be successful against broadleaf weeds in the future. The real challenge will be Wild Oats. In barley crops we incorporate Fargo using a heavy harrow. In wheat crops we use a post emerge product. To date, we are keeping Wild oats below yield reducing levels, but it is a constant challenge with little room for error. One strategy is to hold off doing the preplant Roundup work until shortly before seeding, and saving the worst Wild Oat fields for last to allow emergence of the first flush before spraying. This can be done as long as there are no established grassy weeds to cause green bridge problems. With three years of spring crop before a winter crop, cheatgrass is no problem at all. So with a normal winter to kill fall germinated spring grassy weeds, fields rarely show any green growth in the spring. Volunteer winter wheat every forth year can be the exception. If enough rain comes in the early fall to green up fields a fall Roundup job should be considered. Especially after a winter wheat crop. So far, annual cropping mono culture cereal crops has been successful for me. But I see the obvious benefits to incorporating broadleaf crops into my rotation to manage wild oats more easily, and to benefit the health of cereal crops following broadleaf's. I've very pleased to see rotational research being conducted at various locations, and I will be surprised if I don't some day incorporate broadleaf's into my direct seeding. Direct seeding must be an economic success if it is to experience the wide spread growth I hope and expect to see. It must prove out in dollars and cents because there is no margin to trade off in search of environmental benefit. That is the short term reality. The long term reality is that no production method will be profitable if we do not protect our soil. That is what I have enjoyed the most the past six years. The condition of my soil has improved dramatically just as those before me said it would, and soil erosion to date is near zero. |
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