Spotlight.....By Tim Harrigan

  February, 2000


Build Crop Comfort into Your Cropping Program

Dairy producers are well aware of the value and importance of "cow comfort." Cow comfort refers to a comfortable environment which will minimize stress on the animal. A high measure of cow comfort reduces stress and allows animal’s genetic potential to be expressed in higher milk production. Planning for cow comfort involves evaluating all aspects of the animal environment--free stall and feed bunk design, bedding, barn ventilation, cow grouping and social behavior to name a few--with an eye toward reducing stress. Crop producers can also benefit by finding ways to provide "crop comfort."

Providing crop comfort involves evaluating and modifying the crop environment in an effort to minimize stress and allow the genetic potential of the seed to be expressed in crop yield and quality. Selecting a crop rotation that facilitates weed, insect and disease control and adding organic matter to improve soil tilth contributes to crop comfort. Tillage that alleviates soil compaction also contributes to crop comfort. A challenge for the crop producer is in selecting and evaluating which aspects of the cropping system should be changed in order to improve crop comfort. Yields are a measure of crop comfort but the connection between end-of-season yields and such things as the quality of the seedbed can be difficult to sort out. In what other ways can we measure crop comfort?

 

In evaluating tillage and planting systems for a sugar beet crop, the rate of seedling emergence was an indicator of crop comfort. We compared emergence in a fall moldboard plowed seedbed that was leveled in the fall and 1) not worked in the spring (stale seedbed), 2) worked in the spring with a single, shallow pass, to 3) a standard system of fall plowing and spring leveling with a field cultivator and a Triple-K seedbed tillage tool.

Table 1. Sugar beet emergence compared across tillage systems, 1999.

Plants per 100 ft row

May 10

May 17

May 28

Stale seedbed

148

168

177

Single, shallow pass

111

142

159

Field cultivate, level and firm

56

100

154

 

When seedling emergence was used as a measure of the quality of the seed environment, the untilled, stale seedbed clearly provided the greatest crop comfort and improved early emergence and growth. Seventy-five percent of the seeds had emerged within two weeks of planting. In the standard seedbed less than 30% had emerged in that time. The stale seedbed provided firm, moist soil; freeze/thaw cycling alleviated seedbed compaction; and there were no wheel tracks. Reducing seedbed tillage improved crop comfort. The challenge for growers is to evaluate their farming system and find ways to build crop comfort into all aspects of their cropping program.