Wanting more fall grazing days from cover crops,
Fred Abels
of Holland, IA has experimented with 60-inch row spacing of corn for the past few years as a part of PFI’s
Cooperators Program.
The wider rows create a ‘solar corridor’— which enables earlier seeding, and therefore more growth, of cover crops.
This year, Fred interseeded mung bean, buckwheat, annual ryegrass, soybeans and sorghum sudangrass. So far, Fred says, “I’m not too sold on this system on my farm.” He has seen lower corn yields and isn’t getting much additional fall grazing.
However, this experiment has given him ideas for next year. Fred plans to use a modified IH Cyclo planter to interseed buckwheat into 30-inch row corn. He will use a hooded, banding sprayer to keep his burndown and residual herbicide out of the row centers so buckwheat establishment isn’t impaired.
Fred cites PFI’s farmer network as a source of new ideas and advice; he embodies PFI’s tagline of “Working together, always learning.”
