Old planter hiding in the briars???

[HCJtractor]

Thanks!! When will you plant the corn? About how many lbs. per acre do you use? Is this corn for your use. I assume its for human consumption. I've never planted corn so this will be a novelty. Most of mine will be for food plots, but I will probably plant a little for personal use (I'm being optimistic) What varieties would you plant for these purposes? Do you use a herbicide first or use Roundup ready varieties? When and with what do you fertilize?

 

[BrianR]

I plant sweet corn for my personal use. We eat some fresh and freeze about 75lbs (off the cob). The variety I find that I like the best is the Harris Seeds Vision treated with F1 insecticide. It is a super sweet augmented yellow corn.

I used to work the ground with a chisel plow in the spring, and then disc and plant. This fall, I added a no-till wavy coulter to my Flex 71 planter, so I will no-till this spring. Both gardens were planted in red winter wheat back in early October. Basically I will spray with RoundUp 7 days before I am ready to plant. Then I will no-till the corn in. Hopefully the dead wheat will form a matt between the rows and keep weeds to a minimum.

Here in Zone 5 Ohio, I won't be ready to plant until late April or early May depending on rain. I usually buy 2lbs of seed and plant all of it. Weather permitting, I try to stagger the planting 2 weeks apart to keep the corn coming ready at different times.

I like to band liquid 28-0-0 at V2 to V4 stage. This is when the corn plant determines how many kernels it will produce per ear. I usually broadcast some granular fertilizer just before planting. Usually 10-10-10 from Home Depot. One of my projects this spring is to put a liquid starter fertilizer system on the planter. I have all of the parts and pump, etc. Just don't have time yet.

 

[HCJtractor]

As you have read, I started with an old planter that had was parked for decades. After discovering it in the briar patch, I decided it had potential. After many hours of work, here is the end result! Works great. The no-til feature probably would have been a little better if we had waited for some rain to soften the ground, but considering how hard it was, it did pretty good. Planted soybeans and corn. We had to play with the depth and settings, and had some trouble with the old elasomeric dampeners breaking because of the age of the rubber, but we bolted them back together (which basically disables any "give" the coulters may have when encountering a rock) and they seemed to work fine. I wish I knew its history. The old farmer who owned it is dead, and his son has a big Great Plains drill, so he has no need for this. But I couldn't help thinking maybe the old farmer is smiling in heaven as he sees this old planter burying the seed, once again!

 

[BrianR]

Wow! You did a nice job on thing. Glad to see you reap the reward of using it. Now you need another project!!

 

[Briar Hill Brittanys]

Very nice! Love those action pictures. What corn variety and population did you end up planting? And yes, I agree with BrianR, you need a new project. Mark