Published November 9, 2020 | By Mike Petersen
Today I am offering you a look at how well the roots of the hybrid we strip tilled in fertility two-three weeks prior to planting back in early April of this year [2020]. This information and root map is on the Orthman coordinated approach at the McNaught farm north and east of Polk, Nebraska in some beautiful loess derived soils.
I want to describe the root system in regards to what features are enhanced with our (Orthman Mfg) approach to foundational work in the upper portions of the soil profile. Alleviating compaction, developing a seedbed and placing an initial balanced, nutritional dinner plate of goodies in the soil for the young plant is all part and parcel of this approach. We want growers to set up their crop for reaching the intended farmers goals. Yes there are those that shoot for the 300 bushel club, many details have to work just so – one being climatic factors of rain, plenty of sunlight (2020 was good for that), no big winds or hail. There is yes the concept of hybrid selection. Not all hybrids of corn will magically excel with Strip-Till. However knowing more and more about how corn responds in the environment we create with the Strip Till approach can provide some great yields that make the grower return on his investment and – profit.
To your left is the root profile of a Pioneer hybrid 1185Q we planted on April 29th at 30,000 seeds per acre with a final population of 29,640. The depth of the soil profile is numbered on the right side of the Y axis (vertical). Then on the left side of that vertical axis is the quadrant depths of dividing up the root profile by volume in quartiles. In volume the root system was 65% 0-14 inches, 20% 14-27 inches, 10% 27-48 inches and 5% to the depth of 70 inches. All of this was excavated by us with a small TrackHoe provided by our good cooperating John Deere folks, AKRS in Osceola, NE. This view of the the profile details where the first 65% of the roots take up volume, absorb water and nutrients and then the next 20% and so on. The dominant 95% of the root profile extended to 48 inches – that is a fantastic root system. We calculated the root-soil volume for this hybrid to be 6,090 cubic inches of soil explored by roots. All of this better evaluates from our expertise in Soils and Agronomy here at Orthman Mfg what changes a Strip Till system does to growing big corn and better yields. I have been engaged in observing soil-root pits post-harvest usually every year for over 24 years with USDA-NRCS and now 14 years for Orthman, some 1745 root pits. For those of you wanting to know, this hybrid tipped the scales at 60.5lbs/bushel and 256.5 bu/acre (and that was with some percentage of wind damage that caused GreenSnap in July).
An important feature from this root dig folks, is that we see a better profile of the underground root system with Strip Tillage and proper below ground placement of fertility products. We also counted the number of roots in the root crown to be 50 out of the potential of 60-62 roots per plant. That helps in the overall yield potential at reaching 83% of the maximum root number growth per plant. Since 98% of the nutrients are brought into the plant via the root system taking it from the soil solution and the great relationship of bacteria in the soil living on the root as well as mycorrhizal fungi symbiotically feeding its host – the corn roots in the upper 10-12 inches. This all makes what you plant seeds for come to the 100 fold and more multiplication factor of one seed become reality. Whether you consider Direct Seeding or Multiple pass Tillage or Strip Till then plant as what you see is best for you – we desire all to see what Orthman Manufacturing, Inc does to educate, inform and cooperate in on-farm studies with others in the Ag Industry to improve the farmers lot in life. Our cooperators; AKRS John Deere, SureFire Ag, Nutrien, North Forty Seed are all associated with us to offer a scientific approach to producers and see the benefits by doing it joining hands and efforts.
My questions to any of you as you read down this far and gazed at the root profile; do you know your rooting profile by hybrids you plant in your soils? Does it seem to provide you in this information that top performance comes from better management practices in your tillage, your fertility program, your management of water either rainfall or irrigation? Did you place nutrients not just Nitrogen below the growing plant wisely? If that has not what you’re experiencing presently wherever you till soils, we sure would like to engage with you, offer our expertise, our skills from our Territory Sales Managers as well as my own, and our strong built tillage tools now since 1965 to move the economic yield needle for you.
You can reach us at our email addresses located on the Home Page of this site under the Contact Us tab. As the leader nationally and internationally in Strip Tillage we really want to provide up-to-date resources for all to go the next steps in being the best manager of your soils and water resources that get solid yields every year. Our partners that I mentioned in the 4th paragraph are of that same mindset folks. We want to Get To Work For You.