D2o—Lancaster Fanning, Saturday, October 18,1980
291-bushel com on irrigated Delaware farm
BY DORIS HENRIQUE
MIDDLE Del. -
What’s it like to grow nearly
300 bushels of corn an acre in
Delaware? The guy to ask is
Middletown farmer F.
William (Bill) Haas. This
year he got 291.62 bushels an
acre off a plot of irrigated
no-till com. The official
count on another of his fields
was nearly as good at 289.4
bushels.
Harvests like these are
unheard of in Delaware.
They’re really something to
shout about m a year when,
because of the drought, a lot
of dry-land com is ranging
down around 5 to 15 bushels
an acre in some parts of the
state. Even up in New Castle
County where Haas is
located, most dry-land yields
are about half of normal.
Irrigation is a fairly recent
innovation for Delaware
com farmers. But because of
the uncertainty of rainfall
during the growing season
on Delmarva, quite a few
have installed sprinkler
systems over the past five
years. The aim of most of
these growers has been to
harvest 200 bushels - a goal
seldom reached in Delaware
until last year when
Wyoming farmer Pete
Makin got 235 bushels to the
acre.
Haas’ achievement this
summer shatters that highly
respectable record.
“It also shows that our
sights may have been set too
low around here,” says
University of Delaware
extension agronomist
William Mitchell, one of the
advocates of irrigation for
field crops.
When Haas saw how
quickly he was filling his
gram wagon during harvest,
he decided he’d better call in
Mitchell and county agent
Dean Belt for an accurate
measure of the yield from
the two best-looking areas in
the field.
“I knew they were going to
be up there,” he says. “Bat I
had no idea yields were
going to be that good. ”
Haas family, of Middletown. Del., includes,
standing from left, Fred W. “Pop" Haas, F. William
“Bill” Haas, and wife Phyllis; daughters Lisa, left
kneeling, and Cathi.
How did Bill Haas do it?
Here’s the breakdown on his
cropping program for the
two plots, which were both
harvested -between Sep
tember 10-12. The top yield of
291.6 bushels at 15 percent
moisture came from a 1.3
acre sample of Pioneer
hybrid 3535 planted no-till in
soybean stubble at a
population of 30,000 in rows
30” apart. Moisture level of
gram at harvest was 20.9
percent.
The 289.4 bushel yield
came from a 1.2 acre test
sample of Pioneer hybrid
3382 grown under minimum
tillage after soybeans at a
population of 44,000 plants m
30” rows. At harvest, grain
from this field had a
moisture level of 23 percent.
Both plantings received a
total of 16” of water over the
growing season -9” in
recorded rainfall (most of
this early in the year), and
7” of irrigation water ap
plied in 14 separate half-inch
applications. With each
application he also injected
20 pounds of liquid nitrogen
into the system. Haas began'
irrigating when com was
knee-high and never let it
dry out. He used a ten
siometer to determine when
to apply water.
From the start the Mid
dletown farmer was aiming
for 200 bushels or better.
When he planted both plots
on April 23, he banded 200
pounds of a 20-30-30 fer
tilizer, placing this 2” from
the seed row. He used am
monium sulphate as the
planter nitrogen. He applied
an additional 100 pounds per
acre of liquid nitrogen as the
carrier for his herbicides,
Atrex and Lasso. Both plots
received 10 pounds of 10
percent granular Furadan at
planting.
Sulfur was the only
element showing low in the
soil test for that field, which
explains the decision to use
ammonium sulphate in the
planter fertilizer. Other
elements were normal levels
or above. Ear leaf tissue
This is the kind of com crop that yielded 291.6
bushels an acre for Delaware farmer Bill Haas.
analysis at silking showed a
level of .19 sulfur in the
highest yielding com. (See
tables below.) Considering
the proximity of Haas’ farm
to the Getty oil refinery in
nearby Delaware City,
Mitchell considers this an
interesting point. The am
monium sulphate used in the
starter fertilizer applied
over 40 pounds of sulfur,
which could have been
important, says the
agronomist.
Com was grown on a
Sassafras loam with a pH of
&6 to 7.0. Both phosphorus
(P) and potassium (K)
readings were very high
when the soil was tested
last winter. Haas says this
was because he and his dad,
Fred W. Haas, have spent
the last 30 years building up
the fertility on their land.
“It’s paying off for us now
in reduced fertilizer use,” he
says. “Nitrogen costs less
per pound today than P.”
Ear Leaf Tissue Analysis
At silking
3535 3382
% %
3.17 3.19
39 .33
Nutrient
Nitrogen
Phosphorus
Potassium 2.13 2.35
Magnesium
Calcium
Sulfur
63 .oil
.19 .15
3535 3382
Micronutrient
PPM PPM
Zinc 41 28
Manganese 36 40
Boron 14 13
Soil Analysis,
Jan. 1980
Nutrient Level
Phosphorus v. high
Potassium v. high
Magnesium v high
Calcium med
Micronntrient
Sulfur
Zinc
Manganese
Boron
A silking, nitrogen levels
in leaf samples collected
from Haas’ highest yielding
plots were 3 17 and 3 19. The
statewide average this vear
was 31 But 26 irrigated
fields around the state had
ear leaf nitrogen levels of
3.2 or more, and 11 had levels
of 3.4 or more, reports
Mitchell.
Samples were taken from
all of Haas’ irrigated com
plots as well as from 60 other
plots around the state as part
of “The First State
Irrigation Program,” a
demonstration project
sponsored by the Delaware
Cooperative Extension
Service and aimed at
boosting yields- from
irrigated . corn. ’ Forty
growers irrigating a total of
7,000 acres of com were
involved in the project this
summer. Except for Haas
and a few others in New
Castle County, most of the
farmers who irrigated com
in Delaware are located in
Sussex and Kent counties on
sandy coastal plain soils
with a very low water
holding capacity.
Haas used two Zimmatic
center-pivot systems to
deliver water to a total of 90
acres of com this year. He
figures the overall average
from this irrigated com was
somewhere around 215
bushels an acre compared to
only 75-80 bushels an acre on
130 acres of dry-land com he
share-cropped on nearby
farms. Normally he gets
about 130 bushels to the acre
without irrigation
(Turn to Page 021)
Level
low
med.
high
med.
Flood jet nozzles on modified sprinkler system deliver water in fine mist for
minimum puddling and runoff on Haas’ cornfields^.
Lisa Haas, 23, drives tractor for disking and
chisel plowing on family farm.
Thanksgiving turkey flock is checked by Fred W,
“Pop" Haas.
<1 V
*■ .