Next question to throw out to everyone. I'm trying to get away from spraying to kill all the weeds, so I'm gonna try crop roller crimping cover crops and to all ways have something on the fields to help get better soil. I have been looking into ways to accomplish this. So question for today is if i have the corn planted and when it is about knee high, if I were to remove 4 sections of my drill so I could drill brassicas in between the corn rows. Why would that not work? I was even thinking of adding a little clover and rye to the mix also. If this would work i wont have to build my own innerseeder. so I will gladly take any ones opinion.
Yes, what youre talking about can work and does. Theres a critical weed free period,
http://www.thompsonslimited.com/2015/05/19/critical-weed-free-period/, after it gets past then the corn will usually outpace the cover crop, but you have to have the right cover species, rye for example cant handle the shade. Ryegrass, crimson clover, and most brassicas do the best. Wider rows, like 36 or even 38 works better than narrower, N-S rows also do better than E-W, and of course the thinner the population the better, its all about the amount of light that gets to the ground, even the hybrid selection can play into it, a hybrid with thinner and more upright leaves works better.
I'm doing some experiments in our commercial corn, probably basing most mixes off ryegrass, and some aggressive cowpeas, Black cowpeas IIRC, the idea is to have the cowpeas vine up the corn and not go dormant under the canopy. I spread some last year with a 4 wheeler spreader, this year I'm doing the same as your thinking and using a drill with meters blocked off. The other day I was at the local equipment jockey and he had a bunch of air drill units, with 15" double disks and a packing wheel all mounted on a parallel linkage. Perfect for building an innerseeder when I ever get around to it, asked him how much he wanted, and he told me $5/unit told him Id take 24, enough to put 2 units per row for 12 rows. The disks are shot, but I have some we just took off our 12 row planter that weren't good enough for corn and beans, but will be perfect for those. Now all I need is a Valmar/Gandy/Hiniker air seeder box and I can put it together, that and I need the federal crop insurance to approve innerseeding in my area.
I'm not worried about the ryegrass here, we don't grow wheat or any other small grains in this area, it has some attributes that are favorable in my clay soils, doesn't hold up N like rye does and from what I understand 9 out of 10 years will winterkill in my area.
Edit: Forgot to add that I would shoot for planting about the V4-V5 ( 4-5 full leaves out) that should give it the best chance of getting enough growth to survive under the canopy, but wont affect the corn
