Corn School: How rotation impacts yield and crop resilience

Crop researchers can learn a lot in 28 years. That's how long crop rotation trials have been on-going at the University of Guelph's Ridgetown campus.
On this episode of the RealAgriculture Corn School, host Bernard Tobin and University of Guelph crop researcher Dr. Dave Hooker look at the importance of crop rotation and key corn management insights gleaned from the trials over the years as well as new information that continues to emerge.
The rotational trials were first planted in 1995 and include two tillage systems, no-till and conventional; seven crop rotations; and four nitrogen rates for wheat and corn. "If you multiply all those numbers there's 56 treatments and then each one is replicated four times. So we have close to 300 plots," says Hooker.
One of the first management insights to emerge from these long-term trials was the impact adding wheat to the rotation can have on soybean and corn yield. When wheat is part of a three-crop rotation (corn/soy/wheat), growers will harvest more corn. "It varies between six and 17 bushel per acre, and usually in the hot dry years that's where we see the biggest yield increases - but those are averages," notes Hooker.
The long-term trials are also proving how rotation can make soil and crop yields more resilient to extreme weather events. Over a ten-year period (2009 - 2019) trial data shows that corn planted in the corn/soy/wheat rotation consistently delivers higher yields in both cool and hot/dry growing conditions.
Hooker also comments on tillage systems and what he's observing in strip till plots that are now part of the long-term trials. As a researcher, and a farmer, he says growers should take a hard look at strip till and its ability to mitigate some of the environmental impacts when planting early into cool, wet soil conditions.
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[@BigPtace]

Very good video

[@mskotnick]

What is the yield of wheat?

[@LtColDaddy71]

You will never write a program or a book that works. Nature is random, and when you force her, she resists. Things work and improve for a time, but before it starts being less effective, you have to change things up. This holds true in row crop production, grazing, forestry, and animal management. I’m speaking about this from the perspective of using biology, not chemistry as a means of production. We happen to be organic, but it holds true to extremely, radical low input farming. Their is a lot of potential for success, but it requires much more change than in the actual crop production process. The business side, marketing, handling, the money side etc… Farming is not going to even resemble what is being done now, 30 years from now. These are very exciting times we are farming in. Hope I live to see a lot of it happen.