Twin row corn planting finds a place in Ontario

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

© AgMedia Inc.

by BETTER FARMING STAFF

Interest in twin-row corn is rising says a representative of a U.S.-based agricultural equipment manufacturer.

Mike Cleveland, national sales manager for Great Plains Mfg. Inc., says the concept has been around for more than a decade and its use is growing on both sides of the border.

Three years ago, growers in the United States planted one million acres of corn in twin rows. Now, he estimates the acreage involved at two to three million. Two other manufacturers, besides his, build twin row planters. A fourth company is developing a prototype.

In Ontario, the technique has been in use for five to six years and use is growing, he says, noting he’s sold three twin-row planters here over the past two years.

The approach involves planting two rows of corn eight inches apart and repeating the pattern 30 inches over. Seeds are placed diagonally in two narrow rows so that “you’re spreading the seeds twice as far apart,” as those planted every seven inches in a conventional 30-inch row.

Cleveland says the technique allows for a 7-10 per cent yield advantage over regular rows when nutrients and moisture are available and the crop can still be harvested with a 30-inch corn head.
Twin row planting gives corn roots more room to develop without competing for water or nutrients. He says U.S. studies show the twin-row approach enables root mass to use 44 per cent of an acre’s soil when seeded at a rate of 38,000 seeds per acre. In contrast, root mass in corn seeded in 30-inch rows at the same seed rate utilizes 14 per cent of available soil.

Cleveland was on hand at the recent Innovative Farmers of Ontario Conference to share observations about North American trends in innovative tillage and planting technology.

Vertical tillage is also growing as a popular alternative to no-till, he says. The concept has been applied to fall tillage for several years; more recent equipment developments apply the technique to spring tillage. The equipment features “gangs” of coulters that don’t create smear layers, areas of denser soil that can affect plant growth.

Cleveland says Ontario farmers are trying to cope with the challenge of encouraging corn emergence in cold wet soils in a high residue environment as well as nutrient management regulation compliance.

The new generation of vertical tillage tools “allows you to till and still maintain what is equal to a no-till environment,” he says. They can “allow you to run about a foot deep and really do some serious chiseling . . . and allow you to create a four to five inch till profile on the surface without destroying all the residue.” BF