Bradford County Farmer Sees Benefits Of Narrow-Row Corn
ANDY ANDREWS
Lancaster Farming Staff
UNIVERSITY PARK
(Centre Co.) For one Brad
ford County dairy farmer,
narrow-row com has proven
beneficial by providing a better
silage harvest —, all without
spending a lot of money on
adapting to new equipment.
Tim Beardslee, a Sulßra
Crop Management Association
(CMA) fanner based in Spring
field Township, Bradford
County, harvested 1,800 tons of
com silage on his 100-acre
dairy, Lottahill Farms.
And he did that with a year
that not only had challenges
with excessive moisture, but on
hilly conditions.
“We’re called Lottahill
Farms for that reason we
have a lot of hills,” Beardslee
told the 60 crop consultants,
crop managers, producers, and
agri-industry representatives
who attended last month’s Pen
nsylvania CMA meeting at the
Penn State Scanticon Confer
ence Center in University Park.
Beardslee maintains about
170 head of dairy cattle and
about 150 young stock. Com
silage yields were “not too bad
this year,” he said, considering
all the work involved with tak
ing care of the dairy and the
immense and time-consuming
fieldwork. Com silage yields
went up about 20 percent, he
admitted.
At the farm, Beardslee has
help from his family and one
part-time schoolboy. ‘ '
He commented on a lot of the
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help he received from the Sulß
ra CMA, members who have
“great eyes and ears” that you
can “bounce things off of’ in
terms of trying something new,
such as narrow row com.
The com was planted on
15-inch rows at 34,000 plants
per acre. Some com was
planted also on standard
30-inch row spacing at a plant
population of 27,000 per acre.
In some cases, com went on
in the narrow row format at
38,000-39,000 plants per acre,
according to Mark Madden,
Susquehanna County Coopera
tive Extension agent, who also
spoke at the January PCMA
conference.
Com was planted later than
normal last year because of the
cool, wet conditions early in the
growing season. About 60 per
cent of the farm is in no-till,
according to Beardslee.
When planting the narrow
row com, the farmers used a
simple four-row planter dou
bling back on 30-inch centers.
“We didn’t do too bad going
back over the old rows,”
Beardslee said.
Actually, the Bradford
County farmer admitted that
weed control was better in nar
row rows than in the conven
tional 30- inch rows. Narrow
row com provides shading,
keeping weed challenges down.
No change was necessary to
their equipment, and there was
very little loss of seed place
ment or seed amount by going
back.
Much of the com was
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planted by June 12 on farm con
ditions that were wet and “very
rocky,” said Beardslee.
“We haul manure daily,” he
said. They use the nitrogen
quicktest to determine how
much starter urea fertilizer they
need at planting.
“We probably could have
used more (urea) to improve the
yield,” he said.
The family continues to
increase the herd size. The bam
was built for 100 cows but now
houses 140 milking cows.
“We’ve had to (increase the
Crop Management Associ
ation (CMA) farmer based
in Springfield Township,
Bradford County,
harvested 1,800 tons of
corn silage on his 100-acre
dairy, Lottahlll Farms. He
tried narrow-row com with
success.
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Corn Talk, Lancaster Farming, Saturday, February 22,1997-Page
I
€®im miLi mm
herd),” Beardslee said, to keep
the farm profitable. “On our
farm, we believe you have to
make money off of it, otherwise
why else do it?”
One of the biggest chal
lenges was simply learning
how to accurately aim the four
row planter, which proved chal
lenging, according to
Beardslee.
Madden indicated that in the
northeastern part of the state,
there are 35,000 acres on com
silage, and farms can learn to
“do more with less” as acreage
dwindles.
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"Bolling, uplifting action In the soil allows water to enter and
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Greg Roth, Penn State com
specialist, noted at the PCMA
conference that fanners can
achieve a 10 percent increase in
yields if using narrow-row
com, and “more as we go
north.” The southeastern part of
the state wouldn’t see the same
types of benefits as the “north
ern Pennsylvania folks consid
ering com silage,” Roth noted.
However, some farms in the
southeast a 500-acre farm in
York County and a 2,200-acre
farm also in the southeast—are
trying out narrow-row com
with success.
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