What do I need for about 1 acre of corn

Thinking of planting about an acre of corn in the far back of my property next spring for the critters to much on. I have a Ford 3000 diesel, tiller and an old MF 3-14 plow. Never planted anything before but grass and wondering what I might need to be on the lookout for. Do I need a planter or what.. Take it easy on me I have no idea what I might be getting into.

buddy of mine wanted to do a food plot for deer. i told him to till the ground up, broadcast seed with a whirly spreader and drag a pallet over it to get it in the ground. he has a real nice food plot now. as long as you dont plan on cultivating or picking it, broadcast works fine.

A bag of seed will run about $300.00 just to start. Then till it up and like said if you don't care about harveting it just spread it out there. Cover with a spike tooth drag or packer and wait.

Don't bother buying Hybrid seed for $300 for a food plot. Just go to a neighbor and buy a bushel or 2 of corn out of the bin, or out of the combine during harvest. Offer $5 to $10 bushel. Make sure it is dry enough to keep over the winter. After dry put, it in garbage can to keep away from the mice. I agree with others, no hi-tech equipment or rocket science needed.

You will want about 30,000 kernels of seed.

You will want to plant them 1.5" deep. Corn is kinda fussy on that. It is best to get thrm all the he same depth, all come out of the ground at the same time.

You would want thrm evenly spaced. You can put thrm in any row width, but from one seed to the next, it is good if you are fairly consistent.

You will need to control weeds. Corn is a grass, it comes out of the ground and grows to 4-5 leaves sticking out. Thrn it sits there, looks like it isn't growing, for a week or so. Actually it is feeding it's roots, making much bigger roots. But the top isn't doing much growth at all.

If you get weeds at this point, the corn will feel the shade, and change its mind. It will grow taller, trying to compete with the weeds. However it often loses because it wanted to not grow at this time. Even if it wins and grows taller, it will be a weak poor plant, baca use now its roots are spindly and weak. It is ruined for the rest of the year.

Many new corn growers do not understand that. The corn needs that week or two to sit undeserved by weeds. A very critical period for corn. Even if it has a taller corn plant beside it, it will mess itself up trying to grow taller instead of feeding its roots. This is why fairly even spacing and very even seed depth is iimportant - so all the corn emerges at the same time and is the same height.

Notice I didn't say anything about the type of seed you need, or fertilizer.... That all depends on your yield goals, and for a food plot you likely don't care all that much. Corn likes nitrogen, about .8 lbs of N for every bu of yield you want. Your ground can provide 40-100lbs of N maybe on its own. 30-50 lbs of actual P and K is always nice to add if you can.

Even seeding and weed control early on are the important steps in a good corn plot.

Paul

It may help to know what kind of critters and if it's just food or food and cover. Corn isn't the only food, legumes attract bugs for the birds and deer love alfalfa, deer love some turnips, small grains and sunflowers are goodles for everything. If you are thinking just corn for food and cover then farm it like things were farmed prior to the 80's. The corn populations were nothe so thick then that birds could move between rows, the rows were wider so they could fly out of them, there were grasses and weeds there to support insects and worms, leave a bit of brush in a nearby fencelines for cover in the winter, etc.

Maybe you should some Indian (native American) seed corn that is open pollinated, then you can save your own seed year after year. I'm sure that the critters won't care, as long as they get their share. You might even find a market for it from the hobby people, if you want to pick more of it.

Here's what I do, and my fields are pretty small. Only about 30 acres total in 4 places.

1. Disk it first, then plow it down in the fall.
2. Disk it again, in the spring. Like as soon as the ground is dry in February.
3. Wait till April, and disk it again. Then drag it with a harrow. Wait a week and do it again.
4. Plant it. My planter has a fertilizer box, so my fertilizer goes on then, plus all the manure I hauled the winter before.
5. Wait 3 days after the first rain on it, before its up, and run a rotary hoe over it, or the narrow set to run very shallow. This kills the small weeds before they sprout.
6. Wait a week and repeat #5
7. Take the week you've waited and set up your cultivators so you won't be rushed. Put shields on if you have them.
8. When corn is about 4" high, plow it the first time. Its slow going the first time because the plants are small and you don't want to cover them up, but that's what the shields are for.
9. Wait 2 weeks or maybe 3, and repeat. Go a little deeper and take your shields off. Go up a gear on the tractor, too.
10. Wait 2 more weeks and lay it by. By now you should be able to plow about 4" deep, and at a considerable speed.
11. Wait until late October, and pick it if the ears have dried down enough.
12. Mow the stalks down and repeat step 1.

See, that's not too hard, is it? I use triple 17 fertilizer, and have used feed corn from the feed mill for seed in the past. It will yield fair. I now plant two OP types that yield very well, but I have been developing the line for some time now.
Hope this helps,

Mac

OOOH "sunflowers" Now that is something to think about.

Thanks for the tips gang, will give me something to ponder.

You may consider planting "Bloody Butcher" it is an open pollinated field corn . It has long ears with red dented kernels. The animals tend to like it better than hybrid and GMO corn. Seed is not hard to find ,just search on Google and some will come up. Looks good in fall decorations too.

I am with Glenster,just work the ground in the spring and broadcast it, and drag it in.

If it is just a food plot get some real cheap open pollinated corn, or corn from the neighbor's bin if it isn't protected by some kind of a patent.

Here is a different twist on how to plant it, I've never tried it but I don't see why it won't work; evenly seed a bushel and a half on the ground and till it in with the tiller at 2"-2 1/2". A whirlybird seeder for grass seed or lawn fertilizer will do the job. Drive slow because seed corn comes out of a whirlybird seeder like bullets. It's better to get it too deep than too shallow. Corn can be 2" in the ground and come up OK. Ideal population for maximum yield is in the 32000 plants per acre range but that means big ears the deer or other critters might not like. They most likely will eat part of an ear and walk away. A population of 50000 plants per acre will get you small ears maybe 4" long, bite sized for the animals and the heavier population will shade the weeds quicker. Animals not liking BT corn is a fallacy.

What does the group think about this planter?
Is it worth buying and would it be good for what I am wanting to do?
JD Planter

Don't expect there to be any ears left to pick and crib at the end of the season. The critters got every last ear of my sweet corn even though it was fenced in.

That being a 247 means not as many as the 246 that was corn only, not combination corn & cotton. So I know nothing about the seeding boxes as they were not sold in my area so you may have problems with parts for that part, don't know. Regular corn boxes might fit, don't know. The 246 was a very good planter and the 246-247 was the only model actuall 2 row mounted planter Deere ever made. Just remember that you cannout plant all seed out of box and at the end of planting that one acre you still have to have twice as much seed still in the box to make sure it is getting seed to plates as what your acre will take. That planter can be set for 28" rows up to 42" rows in 2" increments. For the animal feed it would be good to set it for the 28" rows to get more plants for them to eat and use a high population rate. For harvest figured about 3 acres per bushel or 1/3 bushel per acre but for what you want figure 2/3 bushel and that would still give you a third bushel devided in two boxes to make sure you have enough seed in box to fill plates. When we were getting close to end of planting and getting close to end of last bag of seed I would stop every hundred feet and check amount of seed in box and move remaining seed around to where the plate could get ahold of it, the plate will push the small amount of seed away from where it needs to fill the plates. And remember if you are using the corn plate setup in that box a plate for the flat kernels will not plant a round kernel and vice versa. also a plate for a small kernel will not plant a large seed, the large plate will chew up small kernels with more than one trying to get in a cell at a time and that cracked kernel will not grow. So you would have to do a pretty good job of hand grading the corn from your neighbors bin and you would have to go through at least 5 bushels to get enough of any one size to match what plates you will have. Graded seed is not avaible anymore at a lot of places so you might have problems there as well. All avaible is mixed sizes and rounds and flats for the plateless planters. Same as would come out of that bin. Now if you could use the cotton feature I have no idea how that would work. I have never seen a cotton plant or seed. I don't know if a cotten seed is round or flat or of different sizes so no way to compair how corn seed would go through a cotton plate. In my area that would be a very good price for that planter if in decent condition. We planted close to a hundred acres a year for many a year with a 246 on both corn and soybeans before we got a 4 row planter

Thanks for the info, waiting on a phone call from the seller now. When he calls I'm going to run up and check it out.