News

Unusual weather led to unexpected yields comparing tillage

A supplier of crop inputs and services says 2024 yields varied greatly, but a year’s worth of unusual weather led to another unexpected outcome.

Brad Mathson will Allied Cooperative in Hixton, Wisconsin tells Brownfield some of his farmer clients were trying different tillage methods ahead of soybeans and getting unexpected yield results. “At the end of the season, the conventional tillage outyielded the no-till by fifteen bushels, and the no-till outyielded the vertical till by three bushels, and that made everybody kind of scratch their head a little bit because it shouldn’t have worked out that way.”

Mathson says the lack of frost last winter means the soil was more compacted and the spring rains followed by dry summer heat made conditions worse. “The plant roots didn’t have to go down for moisture, so the no-till was a little bit more evenly distributed when you look at the root systems. The vertical tillage, though, the roots were pretty much confined in the top two inches of the soil.”

With the shallow root systems in no-till and vertical till fields, Mathson says the conventional tillage promoted deeper root growth, allowing the soybeans to get more water during the dry summer and fall.

Mathson says 2024 was a very unusual year, and farmers should consider spring soil structure and condition before moving ahead with tillage.