Re: Thinking about a field...

Posted by paul on December 05, 2015 at 08:50:31 from (70.197.206.130):

In Reply to: Thinking about a field... posted by Dave H (MI) on December 05, 2015 at 08:11:56:

30, 18, 15, 7 inch, it all works for beans. Select a type of bean that works with the spacing, a branching bean will fill a 30 inch better. Yields will depend on the weather in September, you can't do much about that. Just try to get the best plants you can to September, and see what happens......

Drilled beans will canopy quicker and may have less weeds -if- you get every weed killed early on. But they might get more white mold, which forms in warm damp soil that doesn't get any air movement in mid to late season.

30 inch row spacing rarely has white mold, you likely will have a later flush of weeds but it is rare to get by with one spraying any which way anyhow these days so what's the difference.

If you want 15 inch rows, move your tractor hitch over 7-8 inches, and double back on your same tracks when planting. Set your seed rate to 1/2. Shoup and others sell special sprockets for that if needed. Works great on a few acres.

15 inch (or 18 for folks on wide row planter) is a nice compromise and might be about the best average, but really if you pick an appropriate bean any of those row spacings can win the yield contest any year.

Years ago we had 38 inch rows, I wasn't so happy with that, it could work, but any problems lowering plant density was noticeable right away. Found a 15 inch bean planter cheap, I really liked that, it is a plate planter.

Then I got a 7000 30 inch planter, and my old 15 inch plate planter was really wore. It will cost some to rebuild 15 units so I've put that off....

Anyhow I've gone to planting beans with the 30 inch 7000 with Kinze seed meters. This reduces my seed bill of expensive beans with the metered seed placement as the meters are much more accurate than the old plate planter or the JD bean cups.

And I've had some of the best yields I've ever gotten with beans the last 3 years with the 30 inch rows. (I attribute this to better fertility, finding better seed for my high ph soils, and generally good fall weather. I don't think row spacing is a major factor either way.)

I have the bean planter in the shed and toy with the idea of fixing it up, I suppose 15 inch done right might offer a better potential some years. But really, the 30 has worked very very well.

I've watched my neighbors follow the different fads of bean spacing, 15 years ago you were a poor horses rear of a farmer if you didnt have a bean drill! Now about 85% are back to planting in 30 inch rows, the other 15% are some version of twin row or 15 inch or a very few drilled. But that is 'here' and we do deal with white mold in the area.....

I have heard an IHC cyclo makes a really good bean planter and can do 15 inch conversion really well. People here hated them for corn planting, but a lot got recycled into a bean machine. I have no real experience with a cyclo.....

The 7000 does not easily convert into a 15 inch row unit, the boxes are too big to fit that close and wheel axles often are in the way. Often some version of a modified 7100 is mounted onto the rear of a 7000 to make a split unit JD bean planter.....

The best conversion for a JD 7000 is to buy Kinze or JD bean meters instead of those spilling seed cups, and just plant beans. If you want 15 inch rows on a small scale doubling back is a good experiment on which way you prefer.

In the past we planted beans real heavy, especially drilled to make up for the poor job a drill does, 220,000 seeds an acre was common with bin run before all the saving restrictions, plant enough to be sure and if they crowded it chocked weeds earlier was the thought. Now a days a good planter with good meters you can plant 140,000 an acre and have better yields, with the perfect seed placement and we do better job on weeds in other ways. Cuts way down on the high price of seed!

I don't know much, and haven't tried much, and every neighborhood has different weather or soils so take this for what you paid for it. :)

Paul

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