by Bill Kletecka, Cuba City, WI

Planting progress is nearing the end in the southwest Wisconsin area. This past week we had very favorable weather and we luckily dodged a few rain events. A large portion of the soybeans in the area are planted, and the last corn acres are waiting for the rye or hay to be taken off and planted for silage. This past week’s heat pushed a lot of the corn out of the ground and we are finally able to row the early planted crops. With the crops finally out of the ground it is a great time to walk the fields and see exactly where the planter clutches were turning on and off. Hopefully you dug seed when you were planting, and adjusted them properly before planting was over, but if they are still off you can adjust them for next year. This picture shows you how to adjust your on/off times on your GS display.

Row Shut Off Settings

With the new RTK network in Wisconsin, I have had several customers that are planting beans with 30” planters on 15” rows. The customers have done both AB curves and also straight track with very good luck. They have found that you cut your desired population in half and plant across the field. Then they would clear the field coverage and shift their line over 15” with the line shift buttons and make another pass across the field. Granted it is another pass across the entire field but the customers are experimenting more than anything. Also I was invited in helping with several trials with corn and beans this past week. A few examples are row spacing on beans from 7.5” to 15” to 30”, and also a starter fertilizer trial done with different row spacing on beans. The use of the RTK network is making these trials much more useful due to no longer needing large gaps or spaces in the field to separate one trial from the other and still be close enough to have comparable data on our highly variable soils. You can see our WI RTK coverage map here.