No till soybeans vs. tilled ground soybeans, side by side comparison.

[@williamkemm673]

This is a perfect example!!! Some people call it no-till and we call it no skill!!!!!!!!

[@TimothyFluegel]

😆 🤣 😂 I love that no skill farming has become very popular, most of then wouldn't be able to get crops to grow with my equipment lol

[@farmingforfunandprofit940]

When we row cropped cotton and peanuts we used strip till where directly below the row a 14 in subsoiler rips a deep slot and 2 coulters throw a bed over the slot before the planter places the seed...... But we quit all row cropping 6 years ago and started a Commercial Hay operation.........Our Southern Grass only requires planting once in a lifetime...... We round bale everything and convert to small squares loaded onto 53ft van trailer loads to contracted TSC stores in our general area ......Only tillage the hay fields get punched by a industrius America areator each growing season........

[@Pennies_on_the_dollar]

Be very interesting to see how things work out!! It is pretty plain to see at least in that surface! Thank you Tim for the comparison!! Always enjoy listening to ya my friend 😁😁👍👍🇺🇸🇺🇸

[@TimothyFluegel]

Thankyou my friend. It's pretty clear right now I'll keep ya posted what happens fine Harvest time. 🙂

[@donbenson5292]

We were farming at the beginning of no till practices. We still chose to chisel plow or bottom plow. For beans the seed bed was always clear. We were very aware of soil compaction. Used duals on all preplant operations with a final finish of pre-emergent herbicide in the front of the disc with a danish tine harrow and a crowfoot roller. We started to use 21 and 24 inch rows. Made a cultivator out of nitrogen shanks with just one shank per row with a wide shallow shovel for the first time and another set of shovels a little deeper the second time cultivating using a 185 Allis. Some fields we spayed if we had a weed problem. Most not. We always had a good crop. We also rotated our crops. Also we used to burn the corn stalk every couple of years. We used as little herbicides and insecticides as possible. It worked for us and had good crop yields, weather provided.. fuel was cheap back then though. Wish I had pictures..

[@TimothyFluegel]

That sounds like your had guys had it all worked out for your operation. Thanks for sharing that. I've been thinking of building a burner myself. What did you guys use?

[@donbenson5292]

@TimothyFluegel we just set the fields on fire. Depending on the wind and how fast we wanted it burned. When we first tried the narrow rows we plugged two holes and left the third open on a drill. The spacing on the drill was 7 inch so it made 21 inch rows. Then we built an 8 row planter out of two old john deere planters.

[@jonpeterson9733]

I can see where it would be tempting to find shortcuts in fuel, implements, time, because of operating costs, but cheaper isn't always better. at the end of a farmer's career what will the soil health be like? high costs/low profits make it much easier to not think too much about tomorrow. all the best to your endeavors👍

[@TimothyFluegel]

This is my thoughts on notill as well. Unless you've got a good cover crop plan, your not building soil, and that's my main goal in farming. Every year my cost are going down and my bpa goes up. It seems beneficial in many different aspects 😆

[@evanaustin2636]

Those 2 fields will make an interesting comparison. The plants on the worked ground definitely look better than the no-till, but the real test will be the dollars in dollars out comparison after harvest. I agree with you though, no-till may have a place if you can roll down rye for weed suppression and no till through it, but in conventional use the whole practice is 100 percent dependent on herbicide, and I can't believe that it is sustainable, or healthy. I can say about my beans, that anything that got no-tilled the same date as mine or later, looks better than mine do. I planted right at the beginning of the drought, and the worked ground dried out fast and I had to wait for a rain to bring my beans up. The no-till didn't dry out as quick, and they had a stand a lot sooner than I did. When we grew beans the last time, in 2020, in a different field, we disced, then drilled, and we had a lot nicer looking beans than the no-tilled field around us. We did, until my friend who owned the field had them sprayed a second time, 3 weeks into a drought, and they came a lot closer to killing our beans than they did to killing any weeds. They never really recovered, and the yield that year was pretty embarassing. I'm having somebody else do my spraying this year, I'm still bitter about that even though technically it was our fault for the bad timing (I didn't know he was going to have them resprayed). My thoughts aren't worth much, but there they are. Thanks for the video Tim!

[@TimothyFluegel]

You got that right in curious to see how much better it does of at all. Right now the rules ground is looking way better so we'll see and I keep ya posted come harvest time. I've had similar problems with hired fertilizer spreaders I just plain do it all myself now.

[@craigrasnic4178]

Awesome video buddy, I’m some parts of the country no-til does very well but with the dirt that I have it doesn’t do very good either. I’ve tried different things and gave no-til a chance but working the ground out preforms the no-til every time. So it really depends on the type of soil a guy has and is dealing with. But I agree with you 100%.

[@TimothyFluegel]

Thankyou my friend. On the ground we have it just seems to stay hard unless it gets done tillage. Now I just need a deep ripper. 😆

[@seanconnolly7576]

I agree with 100% about tillage. The no-till does cost less per acre so a bit of loss of yield will be ok and the carbon footprint is less

[@TimothyFluegel]

The one forks he had is do of rocks I couldn't imagine tilling it the way it is. He's was picking up truck loads of limestone this spring. So there is that to consider to for him 😆 I'm glad it's not my field let's put it that way lol

[@farmerpete]

I get called out on social media for doing tillage. I reply that I'm just an old retired dairy farmer using the equipment I've got to grow a few acers of organic corn for a few more years.

[@TimothyFluegel]

People try to call me out on it too, I can usually shut them right down, especially the guys that use anhydrous, I just point out the fact that they are killing everything in their soil. If they aren't using cover crops they are hurting the soil way worse than we are. One of my favorite things to tell them when they say notill saves soil, is that organic builds soil..... what's better? 😆

[@robmiller2919]

Notill is always slower growing, but I've been surprised many times by fall there's not much difference in yield.

[@TimothyFluegel]

I hope for my brother sake that's what happens here. So far, the tilled ground is still way out in front.

[@robmiller2919]

@TimothyFluegel , Report the results this fall , I'll be interested to see.

[@turbo5488]

My grandfather didnt believe in no till he plowed or chisel plowed and he didnt believe in no till its better to plow or chisel plow a field then you can have a smooth top so rain water can soak into the roots so it can grow better and you didnt afended me at all and I do agree with you about no till 👍👍👍

[@TimothyFluegel]

Thankyou turbo. I couldn't agree more with your grandpa about the rain soaking in. My field also holds more moisture than the no till does too.

[@donvoll2580]

Good day from Ontario Boy o boy a heck of a difference. Yea I think different soil . Thanks

[@TimothyFluegel]

Your welcome thanks for watching

[@gleanerk]

It Varys between folks ,that I’ve found out .

[@TimothyFluegel]

That's for sure.

[@mattutke4704]

Hey there Tim, well I don't know if the weather would have anything to do with the crops but it's been pretty cool here for July, have you ever broke up a piece of land when the CRP expired? Do you use like ground up fertilizer for your crops? My land renters have planted wheat in my field this year &they are coming up pretty good, it probably won't be September at the latest when they harvest, thanks for the video Tim and I look forward to the next one 👍🚜🍺🍺

[@TimothyFluegel]

It's been cool here for July too. The only fertilizer I use is chicken manure in the spring I don't side dress anything. I hadn't broke crp but have done a couple pastures talk about hard lol. Tans for watching and commenting Matt!

[@williamkemm673]

I pulled soil samples for 12 years, there was no two ways about the difference in no skill, I would say 99% of the no skill Fields I pulled samples it was ALL I could do to get the probe in the ground!!!!!

[@TimothyFluegel]

I'm not suprised with that 99% number. You might just being nice about the 1% vibe to think of it 😆

[@farmer_4850]

Did you ever think its the type of soybeans?? I mean im all for tillage but still.

[@TimothyFluegel]

I think I touched base on that. Ya can't compare my organic beans to his, buy the 2 fields I started in were the same brand and number soybeans in the same dirt, one only difference was one tilled and one not. And both fields planted the same day with the same no till planter. My brothers seed guy is the one who planted them. They are a number that he tests every year along with many others and has been the highest yielding in his test plot for a number of years, supposed to be the best of dairyland seed for the area. The test plot is only a couple country blocks from our farm with simular soil and weather obviously lol. All that being said...yes...it could still be the seed 😆. I'm still leaning more towards the fact that the ground is hard like cement though.