Spring Tillage ? OT

Please bear with me i have a few questions for you more experienced farmers.  Have 7 acres of Alfalfa that i'm going to be putting to corn this year. (DKC 59-35 with sod treatment ordered if that will make a difference to any of my questions) I was not able to fall plow it.  (not sure if that's good or bad, always heard bad plow job in the fall is still better than a good plow job in the spring?)  I had soil tests done last fall and i will be having  urea and pot ash applied this spring.  First question, should i have the urea and pot ash applied and then plow it up right after it's been applied?  Second question, as far as tillage goes, i'm planning on plowing, discing it twice, then following that with a cultimulcher to finish seed bed prep, any problems with that plan?  Third question, would it be best for me to plow it, then leave it for a week or two before discing and cultimultching to allow soil to heat up or for the sod clumps to break up better then go right into planting it following the cultimulcher?  Sorry for the long post but i know there is a wealth of knowledge on this forum and i'm interested in opinions and what others have done with hay ground that's going into corn production.  Lastly i'm located in NE Iowa, soil is good black dirt with minimal clay and the field is tilled.     Thanks in advance!   

Let it green up then spray with roundup. After 3 or 4 days plow & disc right away. When ready to plant disc again to work in fert & plant. Useing will save a ton on weed control the rest of the year.

bill2260 wrote: Round-up will not kill alfalfa. If you have other weeds that is good option. If you have 25% or more alfalfa you will already have a nice N supply for your crop. Apply the urea as close to planting as possible to delay leaching. Corn crop will not begin to utilize the N until it is knee high or so. Bill

Since when will Round-up NOT kill Alfalfa?   It has worked every time we have sprayed it. not a problem.

yes it would be better to spray it and let it die and then plow and disk it.

You have so many different options available. A lot depends on your soil.  Here in our Southwestern Lower Michigan sandy soil, the alfalfa would most likely get plowed down in the spring then the ground would be covered with a disc, then fit with a field cultivator then planted. My personal preference would have been to spray it with round up in the fall and no-till corn into it. The fertilizer application is a matter of personal preference. When I was tilling I applied my potash (I don’t use urea) both before and after chisel plowing with no noticeable difference-if I recall correctly. Have you had a soil test performed?  The ground should warm up whether or not you work it right away after plowing. The important thing is you have broken it up. I recommend, at least on my sand, to work it right before you plant it so the weeds and the corn at least have a fair start. Good luck-please let us know how it works out.

 

In response to bill2260-round up (glyphosate) does kill alfalfa as it is a non selective herbicide. Only round up ready alfalfa will not be killed.

Edited by Ben (MI) - 15 Feb 2012 at 8:21am

The only time I ever planted corn into alfalfa I was working on a farm in southern IL for college placement. We waited until everything else was planted I think it was mid May, then they baled the alfalfa and I followed the baler with an AC notill planter. About a week or so later they sprayed Paraquot, this was before Round Up. I was pretty skeptical of the whole thing as notill was not a generally accepted practice in 1979. They got a picture perfect stand, I don't know how it yielded because I came home to work at a local fertilizer plant after graduation.

It didn't take too much bio-engineering to create roundup resistant alfalfa. I saw Les Vough spray test plots one time to clean up the boundrys and real grassy areas in the test plots. He used a shield over a hand sprayer to attempt to keep round up off of the alfalfa. Ten days later the alfalfa looks like it would all die. Several more weeks and ite was almost as thrifty as the first full year of production. Spraying roundup in the fall 2 weeks before your average killing frost date is best way to alfalfa. Spray in the spring and go back and look month later. Bill

  anyway possible to avoid spring plowing.  it creats a plowpan and doesn't allow moisture to work it way down.   I'd no till it.  wait for it to green up.   wondering why u didn't start this project last fall?  

It depends on the spring and if you use plowing as therapy, just don't plow wet and make a mess of things. If things green up early you could let it grow a little 6 to 12 inches  then plow it under and make some green manure/ organic matter. Or this year as easy as the winter has been ther may be very little frost in the ground and you could get out there very early this spring and plow it, it would be more like fall plowed.

i have turned heavy fescue sod as late as early june and got a good stand, and made a good crop, here in Ky. in fact i did a 3 acre food plot last june that did great.