My two cornfields are 12 miles apart and as different as night and day. Field one is where the geese grazed last year. It's on a south slope with mature trees to the north. Geese grazed two thirds of it down to bare soil. With few cornstalks to bother I did minimum tillage before planting. The corn is growing nicely and weeds, especially water hemp, blanket the ground.
Then there's the other field. No geese grazed there so there was much corn standing into the winter. When I chopped the stalks this spring the ground was yellow with shelled corn. During the days between chopping a plowing birds ate much of that waste corn...but not enough. Now the volunteer corn is no thick it's hard to determine where the rows are. Some weeds have begun to germinate. Both the corn and the weeds are much smaller in this field than in the other.
Why is there such a difference in the two fields. Perhaps it's soil temperature. Where the growth is slow the soil was covered with chopped cornstalks acting as a blanket which wouldn't allow the ground to warm up. Then the ground was plowed, tilled and planted in a couple of days. After planting there were many days of cool or cold temperatures not conducive to warming the soil. That contrasts with the other field which tilts toward the sun and the black soil absorbing the sun's heat.
This post is a testament to the simple life I lead.😄
Takk for alt,
Al
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