Question on maize growing IA Gary

With moderate size operations planting 1500 acres of corn, laying and lifting plastic would be difficult (65 million square feet). I could see plastic used for very early sweet corn crops (those that are the sweetest tend to need shorter seasons than field corn, though at the right minute field corn is sweet too) in small plots but not 80 acre fields.

Our Iowa growing season is great for growing corn and soy beans and the seed breeders provide us with a large selection (seems like 10,000 when its time to choose) of latitude specific varieties.

Gerald J.

The biggest downside of this system is the cost of the plastic. Right now it's running at about 175 per acre... but hopefully they can get that down. Last year, in our area it took 12 tonne corn crops to 18 tonne per acre crops (silage), and boosted the starch content of that feed significantly. So, it's a high input system, but when you sit down and run the numbers, it will pay.

Rod

And I just checked a corn data sheet, a 111 day corn needs 2575 heat units to black layer.

$175 an acre cost would kill corn production here. We already are putting in as much as $75 an acre for seed, some do $50 or 60 fertilizer, and $30 or 40 an acre for herbicide. And hope to produce maybe 160 bushels in that acre that cost $25 to run the combine each acre and most years to sell for under $2 a bushel. That doesn't pay for the $135 an acre cash rent (typical in past years but leaping with today's market prices that may not stay high) or for tractor fuel, equipment ammortization and operator labor. Two years ago, cash corn at harvest in central Iowa was $1.45 a bushel. Lots of farmers may reduce their debts this year if prices hold up or we forward contract enough. I have already forward contracted 40% of my anticipated crop and may sell more soon.

Gerald J.

On the other side, we're not looking at commidity corn production. This is strictly for silage on our own operations, and it's all about milk. The way we look at it is that if that 175 of plastic will give us about 1/3 more crop of higher quality on the same inputs, it's going to pay for itself. I wouldn't argue your figures for inputs. Seed is about the same here. Fertilizer is about the same, as are the herbicides.... although our prices for both are no doubt a good deal higher than you pay. Roundup is a lot higher here, and we can't seem to get ahead of them on it. Fert is around 450/tonne for 25-25-0 that we use.... but that's all that goes on at 200# per, along with a good blast of manure.
We also save a pass on the pre-emerge since it's done by the planter, so there's a few bucks there.
The big thing with this system is that we're getting corn in the ground 3 weeks to a month earlier than we could under normal conditions, and using land that is generally considered marginal under any other circumstance because of the heat we get. Following that thought.... rent here is non-existant. We have land coming out the ying yang; given to us to keep the spruce bushes back.... Where rent is paid, 20 bucks is a huge figure; 5-10 is more common. So there's most of the price of the plastic for you right there....

It's pretty much a no-brainer here once you get past the idea of spending all that money on plastic. When you can drive out of the fog on the Avalon of Newfoundland.... the fog capital of North America, and see a field of corn coming to maturity, it's also hard to argue the results....

Rod

www.samco.ie

We only grow for silage and sweet corn in my area, no grain of any significance

Sweet corn under plastic, yes...it's kind of half for profit, half for bragging rights among certain market gardeners to have "native" (locally grown) sweet corn ready for the 4th of July. Which in our area requires the corn be started indoors, then transplanted under plastic tunnel outside until mid-May or so when the danger of frost is past.