Ultra narrow row soy-bean plant1ngs are coming

The soy-bean is a relatively new crop. It began to be widely grown only at the beginning of XX century.

The soy-bean is rapidly becoming one of the leading farm crops of the United States. The production of this crop has increased rapidly in recent years. The soy-bean is less sensitive to frost and less affected by drought or wet weather than corn.

Soy-beans are grown for both forage and grain. It is also an excellent crop to improve soil fertility. When properly inoculated, it produces its own nitrogen and, therefore, does not take nitrogen from the soil as grain crops do.

The important reasons for the rapid increase in this crop are: the development of improved varieties and the ease of harvesting the crop with combines.

Solid or row plantings can be practised in growing this crop. Row plantings are more popular now because soy-beans grown in this way produce higher yields of seed and hay, and larger beens. Growers who practise row plantings are now discussing the problem of the row width.

At present most farmers plant soy-beans in rows spaced 20 to 40 inches apart. There are too many farmers using 40 inches between rows. This practice is followed because farmers have to cultivate the soil to control the weeds. Up till now the farmers had herbicides that could not control all the weeds in soy-beans.

Soy-beans can be planted in rows as narrow as 7 inches. The experiments show that such planting can increase soy-bean yields from 10% to 20% compared with 30 to 40 inch plantings.

This ultra narrow row planting method has become possible due to some new soy-bean herbicides produced lately.

One of the new herbicides is metribuzin. It is manufactured under two names: Sencor and Lexone. This preemergence herbicide has proved to be effective against such weeds that cannot be controlled with other good soy-bean herbicides.

One more new herbicide that has been lately developed is called Basagran. It is a postemergence herbicide that is effective against grassy weeds in soy-beans.

These two herbicides make it possible to have row spacing down to 12 or even 7 inches.

Advantages of the system: 1) a 10% to 20% yield increase; 2) no need to cultivate after planting; 3) less energy and labour are required; 4) better protection of the soil from wind and soil erosion.

Disadvantages of the system: 1) more herbicides are necessary for weed control; 2) no adequate planting machines are available.

A NEW HYBRID

The most unusual hybrid is triticale. It is a hybrid between wheat and rye. Its name comes from a combination of the scientific names for wheat, Triticum, and rye, Secale. The first hybrids between wheat and rye were obtained as far back as in 1875. But those hybrids were highly sterile and did not reproduce.

At present there are triticales that can be produced commercially. Triticale is classified now as a feed grain. As such it is equivalent to other cereals. The grain quality is not yet good enough to use it for bread making. However, the laboratory tests conducted in Hungary show that satisfactory bread can be made from triticale and that the protein content of triticale grain is higher than that of wheat. But still up till now no triticale bread has been produced commercially in Hungary.

Triticale as a variety was first released for commercial production in Hungary in 1968. In North America the first variety of triticale was developed in 1970. Its name is Rosner. A few thousand hectars of triticale were grown in the Soviet Union in 1973.

There are winter and spring types of triticale. However, winter types are generally insufficiently hardy to withstand the low temperatures during the winter months. More attention is therefore paid by the scientists to the development of spring triticale.

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center began international triticale program in 1969. Scientists in many countries of the world take part in the program. It has become possible to compare the productivity of triticale with that of wheat from year to year under a wide range of conditions.

Hilly areas and cool growth temperatures appear to provide best conditions for triticale growing. Good growth is obtained even when night temperatures approach freezing. It makes triticale a valuable forage and pasture crop. Triticale grows well on sandy soils. Much of commercial production of triticale is done on lighter sandy soils.

Compared to wheat, triticale is generally more susceptible to lodging¹. It is one of the problems to be solved by the scientists. The scientists are working now to develop triticale varieties with shorter and thicker stems. Such varieties will not lodge.

Shallow seeding is important, since germination is usually poor if triticale is seeded deeper than 9 centimeters.

Protein content of the hybrid can be 30 per cent, compared to 8 or 10 per cent for corn and 10-12 per cent for barley and wheat. And triticale protein is high in lysine and other essential amino acids, making it excellent as feed for livestock.

Triticale cannot yet compete with wheat and other cereals in quality and yield except in some specific conditions which have already been spoken about. Considerable breeding work must still be done to improve its grain quality and yield. The scientists believe triticale to be a promising crop.

Notes and Commentary

¹ lodging – полягання