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Tillage, Seeding Rate, and Fertilizer Placement for Corn Grown in Claypan Soil under Low‐yielding Conditions
Author(s) -
Sweeney Daniel W.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
crop, forage and turfgrass management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.29
H-Index - 10
ISSN - 2374-3832
DOI - 10.2134/cftm2015.0217
Subject(s) - tillage , seeding , agronomy , fertilizer , environmental science , chisel , yield (engineering) , plough , conventional tillage , biology , geography , materials science , archaeology , metallurgy
Environmental and economic concerns lead producers to consider conservation tillage systems. However, the lower yield often associated with corn ( Zea mays L.) grown without tillage on the claypan soils of the eastern Great Plains may encourage alternative conservation tillage systems and management options. The objective of this study was to determine optimum seeding rates and fertilizer placement to improve production of corn grown in strip‐till and no‐till systems as compared with conventional tillage (chisel plow and tandem disk) on claypan soil in southeastern Kansas. Corn production was affected by tillage, fertilizer placement, and seeding rate even under low‐yielding conditions, but responses varied by site. At one site during low‐yielding conditions, conventional tillage improved yields by 28% above those obtained with no‐till with strip‐till providing intermediate yields, likely because of tillage influence on plant stand. Even though subsurface band (knife) fertilizer application improved corn yield by about 10 to 15% compared with surface band (dribble) fertilizer application, primarily due to increasing kernel weight and the number of kernels/ear, the response was more prominent in years not affected by severe drought. Increasing seeding rates from 18,000 to 34,000 seeds/acre increased plant populations, but under poor growing conditions increases in seeding rates often depressed the number of ears/plant, kernel weight, and the number of kernels/ear. Even though environmental conditions are unpredictable, seeding rates >22,000 seeds/acre on claypan soils may only provide potential yield increases under higher‐yielding environments than encountered in this study.