No-Till v. Max Tillage Sorghum

[@jackweeks8099]

A month ago I never would’ve believed it would yield the same! Some folks that go to our church said they just got power yesterday. And people not too far from them says it’ll be at least a month before they have any. Like you say, anything helps! And prayer works wonders and it don’t cost a thing!

[@ChuckWorkman-y6x]

Patrick, another great educational video! So thankful you and your crop were spared major damage like the Carolinas suffered! With God's help, we will build back better than ever, Carolina Strong!!!

[@SouthsideSurfer]

Glad you made it past the storm. Love the videos. I watch them all

[@timr8501]

I'm pro profit! That a boy. Thanks for the videos. Look forward to the next one.

[@jonathanhege5029]

No- till for the win!

[@DB_Cooper727]

Fellow down the road used to plant his corn and soybeans with a KMC 6 row ripper/spider/planter rig. Pulled it with an AC 7080. Didn’t have coulters in front of the rippers so the ground definitely had to be harrowed first.

[@ncpanther]

Here in NC we do alot of strip till. Best of both worlds. Hardest part is getting a setup figured out to deal with the cover crop residue level whether planting green or burnt down. Your clay is definetly a totally different animal. Many blessings

[@PatrickShivers]

I have some strip till videos if you roll back 3-4 years in my catalog. We use to strip till (when I worked for my father) 1,500-2,000 acres a year

[@victoriahortus]

Critical work conducted 😊

[@luisnunes7933]

Hello, Patrick! Glad it's all fine...

[@pioneerpete8170]

Thanks for the info. Keep going God bless.

[@derekmartin2817]

I believe your conventional is ahead due to fertility made available by tillage. If you band fertilizer on the no till it will keep up. We 2x2 corn with 10-34-0 and UAN blend. By accident we didn’t turn on the system planting a section of a farm. We went back and put the fertilizer on with the sprayer. The 2x2 corn was ahead all season till tassel and capstream seemed to finally catch up. Yield was the same but the 2x2 was 3 points dryer than the capstream. Lots of little angels to consider farming. We also got some crop damage from helene 6” of rain for 3 days hit the test weight hard. Lots of splits. But i believe we’re lucky all things considered.

[@PatrickShivers]

@@derekmartin2817 that’s some great info there. Most people don’t realize how every detail in agriculture has effects down the line.

[@gregrhodes8451]

Enjoyed the video buddy

[@PatrickShivers]

@@gregrhodes8451 thanks for watching/commenting Greg!

[@randygalloway618]

Man, sure am glad you got through it ok! Good video and interesting results. I would have thought the conventional would have beat it based on the way it looked during the early growth video you showed. I wonder if it is possible that the no till "catch up" was because the organic material held moisture better during the hot months. The conventional till would not have had that moisture reserve nor the benefit of the material being decomposed. Kinda of like a time released fertilizer effect. Did you use any fungicide? I've seen people claim that no till can lead to more fungus pressure, especially if it is wet, or if you were same crop year over year like beans on beans etc. Since you went from cover crop that concern was probably moot. Those sorghum stalks look like they would be rough on combine tires, similar to corn, but maybe being cut higher lets them bend over rather than sticking vertically.

[@rainchildagribusinesslimit696]

Love to see it happening

[@MorganOtt-ne1qj]

The important part is the profit per acre, but you know that already. Keyboard experts think they know things that they often don't, unless you have done it, you probably don't know it. In my job,we don't work ground unless absolutely necessary. Mainly before we seed hay ground, but sometimes after a wet fall harvest that left ruts.

[@greenboyatgafarms2250]

Don't you just love these non farmer keyboard warriors 🤣🤣🤣. It's great to see you prove them wrong.! Farm on brother 👍

[@cck3327]

Nice, called that they would yield the same in previous video

[@matthewdibb9048]

Glad to see your ok 👍What happens to the material left standing in the field will you have to spray off the wind blown regrowth

[@PatrickShivers]

I’m going to incorporate all of it

[@tugboat2739]

Howdy Patrick

[@maegandavis8672]

Do you run your cattle on your milo stalks like we do in the Texas Panhandle?

[@stevenarnold1960]

Looks like it dried up nicely. Did you all get a lot of rain?

[@PatrickShivers]

5.5” in 12 hours

[@MorganOtt-ne1qj]

​@@PatrickShiversthat's almost a lot!

[@TheNewsouthoutdoors]

Where do you all sell your sorghum? Just local grain elevator or a livestock feed producer?

[@PatrickShivers]

@@TheNewsouthoutdoors it all goes to quail plantations to feed wild quail

[@jamiecollins1220]

Will you disk the remaining stalks or mow them first? Just wondering how you deal will all that left over plant matter.

[@PatrickShivers]

Flail mower would be awesome, but likely will just disc

[@delawarefarmer9003]

I wonder how much loss you had in the conventional till from the blow down?

[@danshores3322]

What will you do with the residue that is left behind? Till it under for wheat for a cover crop?

[@PatrickShivers]

It will be incorporated, I have a couple different winter crops I am trying to decide between.

[@royl9858]

Were you surprised at the results of this test? Is there any charcoal rot in the stalks that fell over? Was the test weight the same on both trials?

[@PatrickShivers]

Didn’t do a test weight analysis. Looking at the field at harvest time I wasn’t surprised, but anyone that saw it a month ago (myself included) would have predicted a huge margin in tillage favor.

[@79terrafirma]

Any value in the left over residue if baled for cattle feed?

[@PatrickShivers]

Not down south

[@johnscurlock1204]

No more than I know about farming, just helped a farmer put in his tobacco , farming always seemed to be a crapshoot. A farmer needs a crystal ball and lots of luck.

[@PatrickShivers]

You’re exactly right

[@MorganOtt-ne1qj]

A farmer needs STEEL balls and a lot of luck! Trying to be polite, but I don't have any better terms. 😂

[@benlevy1896]

I am a city kid that knows nothing but believes strongly in conservation. I'm here trying to sort out fact from fiction regarding regenerative agricultural practices, because it really sounds like a great way to improve life on earth for everyone, though some of it gives me weird vibes like "Permaculture" folks and their food forests. When you said that you had a no-till no-spray crop does that mean you killed the cover crop manually? If the issue of germination is ground temperature then surely a deeper mulch would help, which would mean that the specific cover crop used is an incredibly important variable to test(if you have a field you were willing to sacrifice, or money burning a hole in your pocket😅) I would never presume to tell anyone what i think they should do unless they asked me for input, but from my understanding of the no-till side of youtube it seems to be fundamentally at odds with monocropping.

[@PatrickShivers]

@@benlevy1896 the cover crop (wheat) was harvested after it completed its life cycle. I then no-tilled planted most of the field. In the no-till portion was a small no herbicide portion. So the field had 1. No-till & no herbicide (produced 0 yield) 2. No-till with herbicide & 3. Conventional till with herbicide. No-till with herbicide won this trial as it yielded the same as the tilled portion but had less inputs.

[@benlevy1896]

@@PatrickShivers thank you for documenting your experiments. I personally would be interested in seeing how different types of cover crops and different methods of cover crop termination affect the yield. I.e. Legumes/radish vs grasses and just residue vs early termination leaving the whole plant as mulch. It seems you have many years worth of experiments available.

[@PatrickShivers]

@@benlevy1896 in the deep southeast (where I am at) wheat or rye is almost the exclusive cover crop. Peanuts are a legume, and the main southern crop, so you wouldn’t want to put another legume out there because it would mess up peanut rotation. Most farmers around here early terminate the cover, I harvest it because I sell cover crop seed. A lot of permaculture/regenerative agriculture guys suggest planting clover as a cover. That isn’t an option down south as clover is a legume and (more importantly) it doesn’t start growing until about a week or two before planting begins…so it provides no cover at all. Clover down here is typically planted in October/November. It lies dormant until last week of February- first week of March (when row crop planting is in full swing) then it grows for 4-5 weeks and goes to seed.

[@benlevy1896]

@@PatrickShivers thanks for all the context 😃