Edna farmer experiments with three different types of tillage systems

By MONETTE TAYLOR | South Central Edition

July 12, 2001 -- "I've never been satisfied with, 'That's good enough or this is the way that we've always done it,' and I'm real happy with the way we've been doing things," says Keith Orsak of Edna concerning his trials with the various kinds of tillage.

"We were playing around looking at different things. I spent a lot of time at tillage conferences that Monsanto puts on...probably one of the best...and a lot of time with our Extension people."

Orsak has 1660 acres of farmland and produces white food grade corn, white food grade sorghum and conventional feed sorghum. He also grows cotton.

"We rotate one-third corn, one-third cotton and one-third milo. Mother Nature prevented us from doing that rotation, this year. We're supposed to have sorghum, and we've had corn. Next year is supposed to be corn, so it will be corn, again," said Orsak.

"Cotton, milo, corn...Cotton pulls so much moisture out of the ground, if you get a dry year like we've got now, corn takes a lot of moisture to produce a crop...a lot more than milo. Anything following cotton produces a wonderful crop."

According to the A&M weather station on his farm, since the planting season started in early March, he has received only 1.37 inches of rain on the farm.

This year, Orsak has planted 90 acres using three different tillage operations.

"What we've done this year...this is our first year to start with...we're working with a couple of people out of Monsanto. They are giving us technical help and stuff like that, but we're not officially tied to them or anything like that...and that's where we started this.

"We've got 90 acres here in front of the barn. The north 30 is 100 percent no-till. I say 100 percent, but we shredded the previous crop, which was cotton, pulled the stalks with the stalk puller, and that's it. I didn't touch it until I planted it," said Orsak.

"We made our chemical winter weed control application just like we do on our conventional till, so we didn't have any more expense there. I loved it!"

Most people...including the landlords...call no-till ugly, but Orsak doesn't see it that way, although he chose not to put that 30 acre plot up by the highway. He said that was "probably done on purpose."

"The next 30 acres coming back south is conventionally tilled ground. We do the same stalk destruction, but we go back in there and actually plow it. We come in there with a plow, run a hipper to shape the rows, re-plow it, run the hipper, fertilize it, run the hipper, hip and drag. So, I covered six trips, there," said Orsak.

Obviously, the no-till cuts trips in the field as well as time and expense for the producer, and according to Orsak, he's very happy with the way that 30 acres is progressing.

"On the last 30 acres, we pulled a sub-soiler. The one we pulled on this would be more for a flat farmer...a guy who does not bring up rows. We pulled that across it 12-13 inches deep, breaking the hard pan and I left it," he said.

Weed control is always a big issue, and the no-till may be an answer to that, after the initial year.

"I can see...initially...in the no-till having a little more weed pressure. I can easily see less weed pressure the following year on the no-till because we're not stirring up that bed and bringing up more weed seed," said Orsak.

As for the acreage where the sub-soiler was used, he feels that along with being an "expensive trip," it did create compaction problems which need to be delt with.

According to Orsak, he is not sold on flat rows in Jackson County and plans to add a program, next year, where a sub-soiler is used along with rows.

"We're of the belief we need to be sub-soiling. The no-till plot may prove us wrong. That sub-soil deal is an expensive trip. It's easily the price of our normal tillage trips," he said.

Rising fuel costs along with the horsepower required to pull 12-13 inches deep has increased Orsag's fuel budget, so he's hoping to settle on the best type of tillage to get the biggest bang for his dollar.

"Our intention is to run this six years. I've always run some type of test on something. You can't run any of this one year," said Orsag.