CRP Land Tested
KXMB CBS Bismarck North D
Reporter Sarah Gustin
Video Feed
You never know until you try.
Tonight Reporter Sarah Gustin exposes the good and the bad of trying to make CRP land produce a profit. The land has been in CRP for 16 years. And now you expect it to produce a C-R-O-P? (Dr. Don Tanaka / Soil Scientist)
One of the questions that I am sure that producers are asking is do you I need to hay the vegetation off before I go into and seed it? And that's a pretty typical question that they ask. The next question they probably ask is, is there enough moisture to grow a crop?
The Morton County Soil Conservation District is showing the successes and failures of converting CRP acres back into cropland. But in this experiment no plows were allowed.
To retain soil health all five crops were no-till seeded. Which means grass control becomes top priority. (Dr. Don Tanaka / Soil Scientist) If they are thinking about no-till one of the things I would suggest is that they evaluate the speices of plants that they have in the system.
If they have grass alfalfa that means that they are not only going to have to use a grass herbicide but they are going to have to spike that with a broadleaf herbicide to control the alfalfa. This is the first year for a crop test plot. wheat, Soybeans, field peas, Corn and sunflowers were all a part of the test. And some crops seem to be out-shining others.
(Rocky Bateman / SCD Supervisor) The wheat that looked so good early on, moisture wise it just hit the wall. There just wasn't enough to finish the crop. We did harvest it, but the yield was disappointing to say the least, but the quality wasn't bad. The wheat ran 6 bushels an acre.
And for the rest of the results... (Rocky Bateman / SCD Supervisor) What we are seeing now is that the broadleaf crops that followed the multiple years of grass of the CRP those were the crops that hung on the longest and performed the best.
Bateman says the sunflowers should make a ton and the corn should produce about 50 bushels an acre. But for the field peas, he says the wild turkeys decided they would harvest those. And Bateman says now the turkeys are after the soybeans.
South of Almont, Reporting for KX news, I am Sarah Gustin. Tanaka says it takes about 5 years to really start seeing the difference no-till seeding can make. Bateman says they plan to continue this experiment for another two to four years
KXMB CBS Bismarck North D
Reporter Sarah Gustin
Video Feed
You never know until you try.
Tonight Reporter Sarah Gustin exposes the good and the bad of trying to make CRP land produce a profit. The land has been in CRP for 16 years. And now you expect it to produce a C-R-O-P? (Dr. Don Tanaka / Soil Scientist)
One of the questions that I am sure that producers are asking is do you I need to hay the vegetation off before I go into and seed it? And that's a pretty typical question that they ask. The next question they probably ask is, is there enough moisture to grow a crop?
The Morton County Soil Conservation District is showing the successes and failures of converting CRP acres back into cropland. But in this experiment no plows were allowed.
To retain soil health all five crops were no-till seeded. Which means grass control becomes top priority. (Dr. Don Tanaka / Soil Scientist) If they are thinking about no-till one of the things I would suggest is that they evaluate the speices of plants that they have in the system.
If they have grass alfalfa that means that they are not only going to have to use a grass herbicide but they are going to have to spike that with a broadleaf herbicide to control the alfalfa. This is the first year for a crop test plot. wheat, Soybeans, field peas, Corn and sunflowers were all a part of the test. And some crops seem to be out-shining others.
(Rocky Bateman / SCD Supervisor) The wheat that looked so good early on, moisture wise it just hit the wall. There just wasn't enough to finish the crop. We did harvest it, but the yield was disappointing to say the least, but the quality wasn't bad. The wheat ran 6 bushels an acre.
And for the rest of the results... (Rocky Bateman / SCD Supervisor) What we are seeing now is that the broadleaf crops that followed the multiple years of grass of the CRP those were the crops that hung on the longest and performed the best.
Bateman says the sunflowers should make a ton and the corn should produce about 50 bushels an acre. But for the field peas, he says the wild turkeys decided they would harvest those. And Bateman says now the turkeys are after the soybeans.
South of Almont, Reporting for KX news, I am Sarah Gustin. Tanaka says it takes about 5 years to really start seeing the difference no-till seeding can make. Bateman says they plan to continue this experiment for another two to four years
