when to cultivate beans

We (the FFA) are considering cultivating our 30in beans this year. I belive that it makes a huge differecne not only to save coop from sraying it an extra time but i think they make better yeilds. My grandpa ALWAYS had to have his beans cultivated weither they needed it or not, but he always did it. he passed away when i was young so i dont remember how tall the beans were. we quit doing it after he passed away because we went to notill beans for a few years.thanks for all input.

God Bless,
Cort B. Lamey

The beans can be cultivated as soon as the cultivator will not cover them. We did it at 3 inches, but used shields on the front 1/2 sweeps to reduce covering. We set the shields at about 6 to 7 inches and were careful and slow with the direction and speed. First gear and 1/2 throttle can be mighty slow. Beeeeeeen their. Jim

my dad talks about when he was about 8 or 9 my other grandpa would put him on the for naa and a 3 row ford culitivator with no shields in a field of 2 in tall beans. dad says that he had to ride the clutch in first gear quater throttle to keep from covering them up.

Gotta ask why cultivate? If it's for 'fun', go for it as janicholson said; farmers who grow beans for 'real' have moved on........quit cultivating about 25 years ago, at least in my part of the world. Spent many an hour plowing cotton, corn and beans with a 30 Ferguson, 35 and 50 M-F, 3010 and 4020 JDs. Can't say I miss it.

Hand high and use shields, second pass 2-3 hands high and no shields. 3rd pass no shields but space shovels out an inch and raise level wheel an inch to toss more dirt into row. Sort of 4th pass a 1/2 cubit high is walk rows with a hoe and pull some to get clean beans at harvest, no docking for trash. This is still done for organic Chinese Black soybeans that get twice the price as regular oil seed RR beans since they are used mostly for human consumption- Tofu, Soymilk, TVP products. Yield average in Iowa fields noted as about 2/3 yield of regular soybeans 2006 crop year. Couple other limited markets that don't like sprays and GM based seeds will have cultivating instead of spray to get the premium- but you can add chemical fertilizers to start and a couple insecticides approved. RN

mostly for fun a little cultivating is still done around here we'll only run it once. plus it saves time for the co-op so they dont have to mess with it.

hope your doing it for fun. yield loss is tremendous.

I loved it when Rolling Cultivators came out in the 70s around here,you had to run at least 8 mph(if I remember right). We did ours the old way, but the neighbors would pay me to do their s with their equipment.

I really don't see how you guys can grow anything without cultivating.

If you look at the thread above "Precision planter parts, looks like it worked, pic."

The corn looks great, no weeds, but the ground is badly crusted, you can see cracks.

I can't see how this crop would not benefit from cultivation. Here it would dry out and die.

If you have Roundup Ready soybeans you are just wasting fuel and soil. If you are growing specialty bean than you can justify cultivation.

Your Grand Father was doing it as a weed control measure. Many of the broad leaf weed controls, of years ago, would hurt the soybeans a little. So if you could cultivate and get the canopy to shade the rows. You would yield more than if you sprayed.

Today you will not help the weed control if you are raising RR soybeans. You might even hurt the weed control because the cultivation might make new weed seeds germinate. Plus if it turns off dry you will lose moisture by cultivation.

I have raised soybeans for over forty years. Todays genetics are making the yields higher than ever before. I don"t want to disrespect your Grand Father but he was just hanging on to some thing he "All ways" did. He was not making a economic judgment.

If you want to raise your yields here are some things to try. 1) Try narrower row spacing than 30 inch. I see a 4-5 bushel yield bump with fifteen inch or narrower rows. 2) Control planting depth and spacings. This will help get a even healthy crop. 3) Control fertility and disease will help get that top little jump in yields. 4) Fine tune the variety to the soil/weather/farm. I have found some varieties that just do better on my home farm that might not be good on my other ground.

I commend any young person that want to learn and try different things. Just apply your self to the things that can move you forward not things that have fallen by the wayside because they failed the test of time.

I probably don't understand, but imho running a cultivator thru the corn pictured in the above post would only accomplish two things.......lose additional moisture and prune feeder roots.