The final plant stand of the field shown above is 252,000 per acre.The rotation is soybeans following wheat. Soil type is a Brookston silty clay loam.For the soil type involved and an average seed size of 2800 seeds per lb this grower has seeded nearly 20 lbs heavier than he needs to.The debate has gone on for years as to what the proper seeding rate for No-til soybeans should be. Research would support that unless you have serious crusting problems the optimum economic seed drop is 210,000 per acre.There are 69,692 lineal feet in an acre of 7.5 inch rows.That means that a seeding rate of 210,000 seeds per acre seed drop would equate to 3 beans per foot of row.
The field above has a final plant stand of 240,000.The rotation is soybeans after corn.This grower has also seeded nearly 15 lbs heavier than he needed.Given that the average unit of RR seed costs approx. $46 per unit and a unit contains 140,000 seeds this grower has essentially seeded his crop at at cost of $13 per acre more than he really needed.
This bottom field was seeded at the recommended seed drop of 210,000 and has a very satisfactory final plant stand count.The moral to the story is that far too many growers are dropping more soybean seed per acre than they need to. As the majority of Pioneer soybean seed sold is treated with Apron,Maxim and Cruiser there is no need to push seeding rates beyond those recommended.Farmers could generate far greater returns if they were to place the additional cost they are putting into unnecessary soybean seed into corn seed and drop an additional 4,000 seeds of corn per acre.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment