# No till beans into hay field



## Goatman (Jun 11, 2010)

I have a question regarding whether or not our John Deere 7000 can palnt into hay ground. I have trash whips for it that I will probably take off before I plant. However, I do not have no-till coulters. Can I get by just tighting up the down pressure springs to no-till into hay ground?

Thanks!


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

I'm not familiar with your model planter, but I can say more often than not when we have no-tilled beans into hay stubble it's been disappointing.

Depending on the ground since their is still sod there if you get a rain before they are emerged the seed trench seals back over and emergence is poor, or if it's been dry the hay has already used up a considerable amount of the soil moisture reserves and again emergence is poor and the crop is short of water the rest of the summer.

We just don't do it anymore, I know it's too late now, but our best results are when the hay is burned down the fall before after the last cutting is taken off.


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## man of steel (Feb 1, 2010)

I second that


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## CantonHayGuy (Sep 25, 2008)

When I bought my 10 acres it had been beans prior to my having a guy come in with a seed drill to plant my hay; he and a friend of mine who farms said it would probably be best not to do anything but drill the hay seed.


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## Toyes Hill Angus (Dec 21, 2010)

Goatman, even with the double or heavy duty springs that are available for the 7000 you will not likely get good penetration, and less important than this is the closing defientcy that you will encounter. The OEM closing wheels will not close sod worth a damn (I realize not as important with beans), it doesn't matter what spring setting it is on or what kind of spring, they will not work. And all of this doesn't touch on the fact that if you can get the seed in the ground, and get good seed/soil contact you will still be dissappointed in the crop. I have notilled soybeans for 15 years and have never been impressed with the results in sod. On the other hand... there is a big price on beans right now.... decisions..... good luck, my advice is forget about notilling beans into sod.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Speaking of no till and seed to soil contact, we've run the stock 'V' closing wheels, the spader closing wheels and have decided before next spring to try these from Schlagel.

Again it's too late now, but some of the most impressive corn crops we've had was from no-tilling into a old hay field. One time we even no-tilled into a 12-14" of green standing hay, burned it down with gramoxone and added a insectide for grubs into the starter fertilizer. That worked well as it was a wet summer, most of the time they got burned down the fall before after the last cutting.


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## haybaler101 (Nov 30, 2008)

I have 45 acres that I took 1st cut off of and I am going to roll the dice and plant beans in it. No-till, JD 7000 15" rows. $14 beans @ 25-30 bu/acre will make me more than a half-azz stand of hay.


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## Goatman (Jun 11, 2010)

Thanks for all your imput. Sounds like no-till in hay ground might not be the thing to do. Would it help if I disked it up a little?


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Goatman said:


> Thanks for all your imput. Sounds like no-till in hay ground might not be the thing to do. Would it help if I disked it up a little?


It _might_, it would help with penetration a little and might drastically improve closing, _but_ we even have a HEAVY disc with 22" blades and discing sod usually makes a mess and takes several weeks for it to break down enough to get decent results. One time I was planting hay into worked ground, was pulling a cutimulcher in front of the Oliver drill and a packer behind that, I was about done when the land owner came out and told me to go ahead and plant the 3 acres where his grandkids poney used to be. The disc and packer were still there and I made one pass and decided that was a bad ideal, so I lowered the teeth on the cultimucher a little more, left the drill openers down but removed the drive chain for the seed boxes and went over that 3 acres several times in differant directions till I had a little lose dirt to work with, then re-installed the chain and planted it, had just a good a stand as the rest of the field. So long story short, maybe try a drag or field cultivator with spikes instead of sweeps installed and see if you can make a little loose dirt.

The other big thing right now, if it's getting dry or is dry in your area, discing the ground will cost you moisture where lightly dragging it will too, but not as much. I'm not much of a fan of discs anymore since we've gone 100% no-till, but I will admit they are great if your looking for more compaction.


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## Goatman (Jun 11, 2010)

I think I'm going to disc it over a few times and hope it's good enough. I hope to subsoil after the beans are off before I repant to hay. I agree about the compaction from the disc! I think no-till is the way to go, but maybe not on sod.


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## Toyes Hill Angus (Dec 21, 2010)

If you disc it, you had better hope that you have a good/heavy disc with agressive blades. otherwise all that will happen is that you will make lumpy soil loaded with clods of sod, you have to disc deep enough to get through the mat of sod so you run the risk of drying out and burning up. You run the same risks as you would with spring plowing.
We did end up notilling some corn into alfalfa this year, so far it is impressive enough.
Like any other aspect of farming, if I had all of the answers, I'd be a millionaire!!! Good luck what ever you do.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Goatman said:


> I think no-till is the way to go, but maybe not on sod.


No-till works on sod as well, it really helps if the sod is sprayed the fall before, a good heavy planter is also a must as the right closer's. We've no-tilled corn into fresh killed sod in the spring and it did fine. Beans just don't like it.


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## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

haybaler101 said:


> I have 45 acres that I took 1st cut off of and I am going to roll the dice and plant beans in it. No-till, JD 7000 15" rows. $14 beans @ 25-30 bu/acre will make me more than a half-azz stand of hay.


I'm doing the same thing, wrestling with the same questions.

Ralph


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## Goatman (Jun 11, 2010)

mlappin said:


> No-till works on sod as well, it really helps if the sod is sprayed the fall before, a good heavy planter is also a must as the right closer's. We've no-tilled corn into fresh killed sod in the spring and it did fine. Beans just don't like it.


I planter isn't quite setup for no-till yet. I would like to keep adding the necessary equipment to it so someday I can.

I ended up disking it last night. We have a 18ft disk. I left the wings up on it and it toar up the sod real nice. I disked it again with the wings town afterwards to smooth it up. Still is a little clumpy, but I think our trash whips can get through most of it.


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## haybaler101 (Nov 30, 2008)

haybaler101 said:


> I have 45 acres that I took 1st cut off of and I am going to roll the dice and plant beans in it. No-till, JD 7000 15" rows. $14 beans @ 25-30 bu/acre will make me more than a half-azz stand of hay.


Change of plans here, went to the field tonite, ground is so hard can't stick a shovel in it, especially were the baler and other tire traffic ran while the ground was wet. Hay is sub par but the market for any and all hay is there this year. I have guys calling everyday looking for new crop of any kind and most are not even hesitating when I tell them the price is up 25 to 50% from last year at this point and probably higher later.


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## jd-tom (Jun 15, 2010)

Another consideration - I don't know what the crop insurance rules are in your area, but here in SW Minnesota, if we take off the first cutting of hay and then tear it up and plant soybeans, they consider it double-cropping and you can't put crop insurance on the soybeans (you can still put hail insurance on it).


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## haybaler101 (Nov 30, 2008)

jd-tom said:


> Another consideration - I don't know what the crop insurance rules are in your area, but here in SW Minnesota, if we take off the first cutting of hay and then tear it up and plant soybeans, they consider it double-cropping and you can't put crop insurance on the soybeans (you can still put hail insurance on it).


Not a problem here, no crop insurance on this ground. We do have crop insurance for double crop beans here though, just different rates than first crop beans.


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## Goatman (Jun 11, 2010)

We already had our row-crops insured before I planted the beans so its going to be without. I ended up planting yesterday. It was still a little clumpy, but I just set the trash whips in another notch to take care of that. Hopefully it all turns out alright. I'm going to tear up some more tonight or tomorrow morning.

-Thanks again for all you guy's help and thoughts.


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