Author
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Wilkins, Dale |
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Wuest, Stewart |
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Submitted to: Columbia Basin Agricultural Research Annual Report
Publication Type: Experiment Station Publication Acceptance Date: 4/21/1998 Publication Date: N/A Citation: N/A Interpretive Summary: Cereal crop residue on the soil surface provides soil erosion control but hinders seeding and crop establishment. Tillage prior to seeding improves seeding equipment operation but valuable soil water and surface residue is lost with tillage. This research was conducted to evaluate residue management and seeding equipment performance for seeding spring barley and peas into heavy residue following a 100 bu/acre wheat crop. Four grain drills with hoe or disk type seed furrow openers were evaluated under two residue management systems. Residue was either tilled once in the fall after harvest or flail mowed prior to seeding. The results indicated that in a wet spring, barley could be seeded successfully with either disk or hoe type seed furrow openers into heavy wheat residue that had been flail mowed or tilled once after harvest. Soil tilled once after harvest had 45 percent of the soil surface covered with crop residue after seeding compared to 90 percent where there was no tillage prior to seeding. Conventional double disk furrow openers did not place pea seed deep enough for consistent germination and seedling establishment in a non-tilled seedbed that had heavy wheat residue on the surface. Technical Abstract: Stand establishment of spring crops with row spacing of 12 inches or less is often a major problem when direct seeding into cereal crop residue exceeding 5,000 lb/acre. Some type of crop residue management is highly desirable to aid seeding equipment in placing seeds at a uniform depth into moist soil without plugging, tucking residue into seed furrows or covering seed furrows with deep layers of residue. This research was conducted to evaluate residue management and seeding equipment performance for seeding spring barley and peas into wheat residue following a 100 bu/acre crop. Four grain drills with hoe or disk type seed-furrow openers were evaluated under two residue management systems. Residue was either tilled once in the fall after harvest with a heavy offset disk or flail mowed in the spring prior to seeding. The results indicated that in a wet spring, barley could be seeded successfully with commercially available disk or hoe type seed-furrow openers into heavy wheat residue that had been flail mowed or tilled once after harvest. Soil tilled once after harvest had 45 percent of the soil surface covered with crop residue after seeding compared to 90 percent where there was no tillage prior to seeding. Conventional double disk furrow openers placed pea seed one inch deep or less which was too shallow for consistent germination and seedling establishment in a non-tilled seedbed that had heavy wheat residue on the surface. Pea stands in non-tilled plots seeded with disk openers were from 40 to 100 percent lower than in plots seeded with hoe type openers. In soil tilled once in the fall, the shallow seeding with conventional double disk openers produced better stands of barley and peas than the deeper seeding with hoe type openers. |
