HEL coming out of pasture to be Row Cropped

Got a new piece of land in the works. It's been in grass/clover hay for past 6-8 years. I need to mow it off as it didn't get cut for hay a second time this year. What's the best plan of attack to get it ready for spring crop planting? Getting soil samples pulled now. May spray it this fall after mowing and get fertilizer on too. Thinking of going with corn as better option than soybeans after haying for so long. Any bright ideas of things to do or not to do? It will be no-till since it is classified as highly erodible land.

How much land, where is it? What do you have for equipment? What experience do you have with row crops. Corn making 200+ Bushels per acre is loosing money! What do you see as the future of this chunk. Need to know to even approximate an answer. Jim

20 acres. I farm a few hundred aside from full time work. I have all equipment needed. Plan to keep it in row crops.

Then you have the reasoning under control and are not an excited first timer. That is a relief. My only recomendation would be to plant following topo contours unless it is mostly at the same angle, then as well across the hill, not up and down. Also leave considerable root structure in the ground to hold the soil. Jim

2 qt of round-up next spring, combined with a pint of 2,4-D. Then plant with a decent no-till planter. How much clover? Old sod stands can contribute a lot of N if there is a significant amount of legume left.

It'll work. We've brought a lot of CRP, old pastures, etc. back to life that way.

And I'm glad you want to no-till it.

Around here pasture/hay fields are loaded with rodents. They don't seem to eat as much soybean seed as they do corn seed.

Killing it this fall would be a good thing if possible. I doubt that I would mow it first though.

Eric is right. Maybe you should consider soys the first year. Old hay ground with grass holds a bunch of bugs that like grass type plants and corn is a grass plant. If you do stay with corn, an in furrow insecticide along with a BT corn is important along with plenty of nitrogen. The reason I say BT with insecticide is the insect has to eat some of the corn plant to die and if the insect population is overly high too much of the corn roots will be eaten before the insect population is handled. There is where the insecticide will help. If this is HEL land it might be lighter soil that doesn't hold moisture as well. Unless you have had an overabundance of moisture like we have in NWIA the grass has sucked out a lot the soil moisture and we all know corn likes water.

A neighbor across the fence from me killed a smaller brome grass hay field on lighter soil this spring and no till planted corn into it. He did a very good job of no tilling, and I have told him so. He knifed in a good supply of nitrogen and we have had double the annual rainfall this summer and the corn was still short and sickly looking. Straight brome grass is about the worst for sucking moisture and nitrogen out of the soil though so I might be comparing apples to oranges when I compare this to your field but it is an example of what can happen. He incorporated this grass patch into a field that was corn last year and I could see the distinct border where the corn that was planted into last years corn stalks was much taller.

My opinion is kill it this fall. Go with beans because inputs are considerably lower. Lime this fall if needed. Wait til spring on fertilizer. The old fertilize in the fall so it's ready for spring is just a trick so companies don't have as much to run in the spring. Believe me I used to work for one. Our private egronomist explained fertilizing in the fall as put some marbles in a whiffle ball...then try to get them out. The way fertilizer is now days it needs very little break down time and if you wait too long to get a crop on your p&k will get hung up like the whiffle ball

I no till all of my corn behind direct chopped rye grass/clover every spring after broadcasting P&K to test, no starter needed because of the N fixed by the clover. Spray 1 time after emergence and a liquid N boost right before the real hot days start.

I no till all of my corn behind direct chopped rye grass/clover every spring after broadcasting P&K to test, no starter needed because of the N fixed by the clover. Spray 1 time after emergence and a liquid N boost right before the real hot days start. Due to high average rain fall and no freezing all of our land is HEL but also easy to establish a winter crop on.

I will add that we always did corn after CRP, pasture, prairie, etc. because usually that "untended" land can be pretty rough. And trying to "smooth" it with tillage meant a lot of tillage, rock picking, tree root removal, etc.

Trying to harvest beans the first year in a field like that can be a challenge, and if K is short, corn will do better than beans.

As a dairy farm though, we could always harvest that first year of corn as silage.

Also, while many mentioned a fall kill of the sod, a spring kill works just as good. The fall kill will not eliminate the need for spring weed control- you will need to spray it again in the spring anyway.
Roundup ready corn and beans make the whole deal easier, because if you don't quite get it before planting, you can clean up easily after.