Gerard Grubb admits that one of the reasons he became interested in no-till was because he simply didn’t want to plow.

“I’m a lazy man farmer,” he says. “I can’t stand plowing.”

His father had been the one who plowed their Mildmay, Ontario, farm from when it was purchased in 1978 until 1982. After that, Gerard and his brother farmed together and Gerard decided to try discing instead, which he continued doing into the late 1990s.

Around that same time, he kept hearing about soil tilth.

“If you had a dry year, it was all due to soil tilth then,” he says. “I could see in the discing, the material leaving ground. So I’m going, ‘How do we keep that here? Working with the soil tilth then, how do we build that up?’”

He learned that building soil tilth was all about soil carbon, so his main goal since the late ’90s and early 2000s has been increasing that. He started with no-till in 2000, after he and his brother split up and he was down in equipment.

Today, Gerard and his son, Ben, only cultivate a field when it’s a new farm they’ve picked up that needs to be leveled out before going into no-till. They’re seeding cover crops, banding fertilizer and using precision technology to continue progressing forward.

SHALLOW STRIPS. The Grubbs built this 12-row strip-till bar with Dawn Pluribus units to place phosphorus in the ground ahead of corn. They like the Dawn units because they only run about 3 inches deep and 6 inches wide and have a low horsepower requirement.

Strip-Tilling ‘P’

For environmental purposes, about 6 years ago the Grubbs decided to purchase a strip-till unit to start placing dry phosphorus (P) in the soil. While their planter at the time had the ability to apply liquid fertilizer, Gerard says it was “twice the money for half the product.”

At first they ran an 8-row strip-till unit, before buying a frame and extending it to 12 rows to match the width of their planter. The Grubbs are now using Dawn Pluribus strip-till units, which they’re pleased with because they only disturb the top 3 inches of the soil in a 6-inch-wide strip, and the horsepower requirement is low, allowing them to go as fast as 9 mph.

They’re currently strip-tilling in the spring ahead of their corn crop, applying a 300-pound-per-acre mix of 15-25-12-6.6-0.6 in the strip. At that rate, there’s about 45 pounds of active nitrogen (N), which Gerard says is a good amount to get the corn started and provides enough P for the corn. He also sidedresses corn with liquid 28% N.

For potassium (K), the Grubbs were broadcasting it on every acre in late fall when all the crops were off. But after doing some grid sampling and discovering that their K levels were as low as 50 ppm in some areas and over 200 ppm in others, they worked to bring everything to 150 ppm. Since doing that, they’re only spreading potash after their wheat crop at crop-removal rates.

The Grubbs have seen higher corn yields with strip-till but credit that more toward the higher fertilizer rates they can apply with the system. Gerard says on fields that are high in fertility, he wouldn’t see a need to strip-till.

“If I had high-fertility ground that I could just run a little pop-up liquid on, I would have no problem going back to just a straight corn planter,” he says. “But we’ve got to work, environmentally, on getting that P in, and that’s the only way I’ve seen to get that in.”

They haven’t strip-tilled soybeans yet because they can raise their inter-row 15-inch rows. Gerard says he would have no problem going to 30-inch soybeans if they could get a good variety that would canopy fast enough. They’re currently using a 26-10 DeKalb variety, which won’t canopy close in 30-inch rows. They’re experimenting with new DeKalb varieties.

Fall vs. Spring

While they’ve primarily made strips in spring, last fall the Grubbs started a field-scale experiment where they stripped every other pass in the fall. This spring they strip-tilled the whole field, going over the strips that were built in the fall a second time.

On the strips that were made in both fall and spring, they planted two different varieties, and then came back and planted the spring-only strips with the same two varieties, but labeled them differently so they could have two different varieties on two different soils.

The Grubbs are interested in seeing: 1) whether there’s a difference between the two varieties; and 2) whether there’s a difference between the strips that were only made in the spring vs. the ones that were stripped in both spring and fall.

As this issue went to print, the Grubbs hadn’t seen any differences in the field with the emerged plants.

Gerard is also considering doing some fall strip-tilling and seeding faba beans in the strip as a cover crop after winter wheat.

With their rotation of corn-soybeans-wheat, he says they’ve run into issues with slugs on their corn following the wheat crop. He thinks faba beans would help break down the wheat residue in the strip and keep the slugs away from it, as well as provide N for the following corn crop.

Gerard plans to build an applicator to seed faba beans this winter. He’d like to take a mini Valmar unit that could be mounted on both the top of his strip-till unit — to seed the faba beans — and on top of his sidedress applicator so he could seed annual ryegrass during his sidedress application.

Interseeding Tool

The Grubbs have been interseeding annual ryegrass into corn since 2014. Gerard originally tried annual ryegrass after soybeans one year, but due to their location it didn’t establish.

He chose the species for interseeding because of its low growth and ability to persist through the winter, but may add crimson clover to introduce another species.

“I want something simple,” he says. “I want something that would work favorably for retaining nutrients in the soil.”

The Grubbs interseed ryegrass with an AGCO Spra-Coupe 4455 sprayer with a Valmar 3255 air seeder attached to the machine. Originally he used a Flexicoil air cart but ran into problems with the seeding rate.“Going down the field it did what it wanted to do. But it’s not designed for this,” he says, noting the air cart setup would also knock down and run over corn stalks. “We have to go back and remember that corn is the reason we’re in the field. We can be all gung-ho about cover crops but we have to be focused on cash crops. We don’t want to take away from the yield.”

By switching to the Valmar unit, Gerard says he’s able to seed his rows more accurately and evenly, and is also using the setup to frost-seed his red clover into his wheat, noting that it “worked perfectly.”

Gerard aims to interseed covers right after sidedressing corn at the 6- to 8-leaf stage, adding that he does his best to seed it before a rain. “The more rain, the more even the crop is throughout the field,” he says.

Oats and Clover

Red clover was the first cover crop the Grubbs started using. Gerard says he began frost-seeding it into winter wheat around 2000, about the same time he started no-tilling.

“To me, it’s always been a no-brainer to get red clover in the program,” Gerard says.

After wheat harvest, he tries to let red clover grow as long as possible into the fall. It’s standard practice in his area to terminate it in early October, but he tries to wait until November because the root mass of the cover “almost doubles in the month of October,” he says.

“I watch the weather to make sure I can get it terminated before we get too many freezes, otherwise it might be an issue getting it all terminated.”

Some years he doesn’t get a good stand of red clover, so Gerard is starting to use oats as a backup cover after wheat harvest in those years. Last year he tried a couple different rates of oats after wheat: 60 pounds, 35 pounds and 20 pounds.

He says the 60-pound rate felt like a waste of money, and that 20-30 points is sufficient to keep erosion down and have living roots in the soil. He also worries a high seeding rate could cause clumping issues in the spring due to the large root mass of oats.

This spring he also seeded oats before his soybean crop. Gerard says he was at a seminar a while back and was telling Ohio no-tiller and veteran cover crop user David Brandt about the annual ryegrass that hadn’t established in his corn last summer. Brandt suggested seeding oats on those fields in the spring.

So in mid-March, when there was still a little bit of corn residue left, the Grubbs seeded 20-25 pounds of oats on with their interseeder, and Gerard says it worked pretty well, noting the cost was very minimal.

“Anytime we have some fibrous roots in the ground, planting into it is just a whole lot nicer,” he says.

FOLLOWING WHEAT. Gerard Grubb always frost-seeds red clover into his wheat, but he’s starting to use oats as a back-up cover crop in case he doesn’t get a good stand of clover. He tries to wait until November to terminate red clover, since he says its root mass can double in October. 

Soil Changes

Gerard originally became interested in adding cover crops to their system to protect their soil from erosion, especially on their rolling ground.

In 1995, he read David Montgomery’s book, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations, and realized the importance of holding on to the top 6 inches of soil.

They also started using covers because one of Gerard’s major goals for the operation is to have more biology working in the soil year-round.

“You know, we’ve got the earthworms out there. We’ve got all kinds of them,” he says. “You could see the middens about the third year after I started no-tilling this field.

“I had seagulls come in and land in this end of the field and walk to that end with their heads down. They were just scooping all my worms up. But I feel the soil biology is the one thing that we’re just not 100% on yet.”

They have seen improvements in their soil health, though. Gerard says organic matter levels have increased from 3.6% to 4.5%, and he can see the difference in water infiltration.

He says he was recently at an open house on a dairy farm and there was a soil specialist from the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA) who brought in a rain simulator.

“Just watching the differences between a tilled soil pan and one with cover crops was just unbelievable,” he says. “The water just ran off the tilled soil, but on the cover crop one it actually drained through.

“I brought that back to my own experiences here because we just had one new farm we had to work this spring to level it out, and it’s just been a pain because we had so much rain here it’s been a slop and we can’t get on it.

“With the rest of my no-tilled fields, we get an inch of rain and no mud sticks to the tires the next day. It was really eye opening the way the soils have changed.”

Playing with Precision

Another goal the Grubbs hope to achieve in 2 years is variable-rate seeding. Gerard is interested in trying it out and thinks the return on investment will be higher on the soybeans than the corn crop.

“It’s the data that I’m looking at that soybeans respond differently to different populations,” he says. “Whereas corn, I’m not certain our land is that variable that it’s going to pay as much.”

The Grubbs are doing some variable-rate fertilizer application, mainly with their P. Gerard would like to see soil P levels go from around 15-20 ppm to 25 ppm, so he’s looking to apply P more often while preventing it from leaving the farm. This spring, they variable-rated P onto their soybeans.

“It gets worked in a little bit putting the soybeans in,” he says. “Then in fall we put wheat in. And hopefully by wintertime with major runoffs we’ve got it somewhat worked into the ground.”

But variable-rate planting is still a work in progress, as the Grubbs would like to have more data from their fields before deciding whether it’s a good investment.

The Grubbs have more than 15 years of yield data and some grid sampling maps, but Gerard would also like to see a grade map and soil depth map.

“I’m thinking maybe at least three or four maps before I’m confident that somebody’s going to go out to the field and tell me this is what I should be doing,” he says.

In recent years they had Practical Precision take SoilOptix maps of their fields. SoilOptix is a tool attached to a utility vehicle that surveys levels of soil radiation, which then produces high-resolution maps showing measurables such as calcium base saturation, K base saturation, calcium-to-magnesium ratio, elevation and organic matter.

They want to use the maps to learn more about their soil’s water-holding capacity.

Another piece of technology they added recently was RTK guidance. When asked how it’s paid off on the farm, Gerard laughs, “Considering I can’t drive a straight line, it’s 110%.”

RTK also allows him to plant corn directly in the center of the strips, which he thinks has a good payback as well.

Planter Adjustments

The Grubbs are also upgrading their planter. Running a 12-row, 30-inch John Deere 1790 with 15-inch-row interplants, they installed Precision Planting’s DeltaForce hydraulic down force system on the 30-inch rows.

So far they’ve been impressed with how responsive and accurate the system is. Gerard recalls one time Ben had stripped the field and when he finished up in the back corner he lifted up the strip-till unit and carried it across the field on an angle.

When Gerard planted that field he saw the wheel marks from that pass and watched the DeltaForce system adjust accordingly in that 2-foot path where that ground was compacted.

“With the variation of soil textures and different moistures we’re running up against, I think it’s optimal,” he says. “We’ve had some pretty wet conditions around here. I think it’s just one of the tools to be used to get that plant off to a running start.”

The interplants on their planter for soybeans still have spring down pressure and they’re starting to see those rows are getting the down pressure they need.

Their row units are set up with no-till coulters, Keeton seed firmers, solid closing wheels and drag chains. They used to run floating row cleaners but took them off because the Calmer Corn Head BT Crushers added to their combine 5 years ago do a better job of processing residue for decomposition.

They might also remove the coulters. “We’re trying to get less steel in the ground, because it’s a wear and fuel thing,” Gerard says.