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Kalona, IA | I got a chuckle reading these responses. Also noted that almost no one from IA responded. We have Lots of poor land out here in IA too. And I don't farm any ground with deep topsoil. Quite a bit of ground in the area is HEL acres and our forefathers did full tillage and eroded a LOT of our topsoil. Yet all that being as it is I am amazed at how poorly we can sometimes manage our crops and still get close to 200bpa. It seems more and more guys tell me that with their yield mon. they are finding that their hill ground does better then their flat bottom ground. I think drainage ,as in tile, and the soil stucture type has a lot to do with that.
If we have adequate moisture and plenty of sunshine our hills can avg. 200 on corn with some manure and 75# N. Unbelievable what I observed on the monitor this year. I have a brother living in Northern IN, and a sister in central KS and they are both in sandy soil types where they are 2 wks away from a drought. We can go 4 weeks w/o rain and still have a bumper crop if we have had adequate reserve moisture in the soil.
When I drive thru some parts of IA or IL and see these huge flat fields I wonder why my forefathers didn't stop and put down roots. Sure would be more fun to farm then hills!! | |
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What makes Iowa/Illinois soil so good?
