Although more than two decades of no-till practices have been good to Mark Montel, 8 years ago he describes hitting a wall as his regular soil tests showed he wasn’t building soil organic matter very quickly.
No-till practices weren’t doing enough to improve his soil resource. So Montel shifted his priorities to building soil health and it’s paying off: Montel harvested an average of 197 bushels of corn per acre across the farm last fall, and 72-bushel soybeans — both records for his 500-acre operation in central Indiana and way above county averages.
He isn’t sure if the poultry litter, volunteer buckwheat, foliar micronutrients or pre-plant sulfur applications did the trick with soybeans, but he’s thrilled with his yields. “I think I’m getting to point where I’m seeing some benefits in building up soil health. I heard other people around here had good corn yields but not those kind of soybean yields.”
Starting Out
Mark Montel no-tills about 200 acres each of corn and soybeans and 100 acres of soft red winter wheat near Claypool, Ind. He’s been no-tilling for more than 25 years, starting in 1988 after making some trips to Jim Kinsella’s farm in Illinois to learn about the practice.
“I can remember going out there and learning how earthworms populations would increase if you no-tilled. Jim was actually feeding his earthworms,” Mark says. “In the middle of the summer his corn ground was running out of residue for the earthworms to eat, so he was trying to find grass clippings and other city waste that he could put out on his fields.”
Montel first no-tilled soybeans with a 15-foot Tye 2015 drill on 8-inch spacings, which he’s kept in good shape and is still used for seeding summer cover crops after wheat. By 1996 he was 100% no-till and has been ever since.
He’s still using the 6-row Case IH 900 planter he bought in 1993 to no-till corn, and he recently added a 30-foot Case IH 5500 Soybean Special set to 15-inch spacings for planting soybeans. The planter has a 3/4-inch coulter and Dawn Equipment row cleaners. Although many no-tillers remove coulters over time as their soils mellow or their no-till management improves, Montel hasn’t done that yet.
“I like to clear a 4-inch path with my trash wheels. It cuts any corn stalks or other debris, which makes it easier for the row cleaners to clear it off,” he says. “I also think it helps with keeping bugs and slugs and other things away from my corn stalks.”
“I’m seeing my plow line is going away because the dark topsoil with more organic matter is filtering down…”
— Mark Montel
After broadcasting a dry mix of ammonium sulfate (AMS) and urea Montel typically no-tills corn and soybeans after April 20 — depending on how quickly soil temperatures warm up — and he harvests soybeans from late September to early October and corn mid- to late October.
He terminates annual ryegrass and cereal rye with glyphosate, 2,4-D and Sharpen about a week before planting, paying close attention to weather conditions as he kills ryegrass.
“I don’t spray until I’ve mowed my lawn grass two times. I can’t have any nighttime temperatures below 35 degrees, because once the ryegrass goes dormant it needs 3 days to come out of that, so I have to wait to spray,” Montel says.
Montel’s total N program for corn is 175-200 pounds an acre and applications are split up a variety of ways. He relies on the AMS and urea to supply 50 pounds of nitrogen (N) per acre and 18 pounds of sulfur, which he says his crops are needing more and more.
He then sidedresses corn with 28% at V4-V7 for an estimated 125 pounds of N. He also spreads poultry manure at 2 tons an acre for corn — for another 30 pounds of N and 60 pounds of potassium (K) — and 1 ton per acre ahead of soybeans.
Maximizing Inputs
One of Montel’s goals has been to utilize crop nutrients more efficiently, and he’s doing that in a couple of ways. Last year he started participating in field trials with Purdue University’s InField Advantage program, joining a group of farmers working with Purdue and the NRCS on gathering in-season leaf testing data in corn.
Montel reports the N he applied and the method and timing, and a local NRCS comes out to take leaf tissue samples later in the growing season. After harvest, a group of farmers from his county get together to share experiences and test results, which included aerial photography and nitrate testing data.
Although it was Montel’s first year in the program, he’s seen enough data and discussion to consider reducing N applications further this year. Montel has previously done field trials for corn on 50 acres with 135 pounds of total N per acre and yields were 188 to 200 bushels. “I think I’m seeing a trend where I can reduce my N applications,” he says.
Discussions with the InField Advantage farmers also revealed some of them were seeing up to 15 bushels of yield response in soybeans from sulfur applications prior to planting. So Montell will continue applying AMS and urea ahead of soybeans this spring. “It looks like the cost of applying 15 pounds of sulfur will be more than returned in yield,” Montel says.
Making a Move
Although Montel stayed 100% loyal to no-till beginning in the mid-1990s, he noticed organic matter levels in his soils was barely inching up. Adding cover crops to his rotation in 2011 helped Montel shift his focus toward feeding the soil instead of his crops.
One early sign of success came in 2012, when covers flown on corn fields during the historic drought thrived because the crop hadn’t used up all of the nutrients. That proved to him that covers can sequester leftover nutrients from the soil.
But finding the right method for cover-crop seeding after harvest has been a challenge, as he feels his location doesn’t allow for much time for cover crops drilled after harvest to grow and provide benefits. That forced him to look at over-the-top seeding that he notes is totally dependent on the weather for germination.
For 2 years he hired someone with a highboy applicator to interseed cereal rye and radish in August into standing corn, post tassel. “I learned that cereal rye doesn’t do well in the shade of a good corn crop,” Montel recalls.
GREEN ACRES. Cereal rye, annual ryegrass, rapeseed and radish are Mark Montel’s go-to cover crops after corn and soybean harvest. After soft red winter wheat is harvested he uses a 15-foot Tye 2015 drill on 8-inch spacings to seed a 15-way cover-crop mix to build soil biology more aggressively.
This brought him back to aerial application. Last year, between late August and early September, Montel had cereal rye flown on fields going to soybeans and annual ryegrass on fields going to corn, with rapeseed and radishes included in both mixes. He notes the ryegrass emerged better, but he expects cereal rye to catch up this spring.
A second leg of his cover-crop program happens in summer. While many no-tillers in the Corn Belt have stopped raising wheat due to poor prices, Montel kept it in his rotation so he could seed a more aggressive cover-crop mix and improve biological diversity in his fields.
The last 2 years after wheat harvest he’s begun drilling a 14-way mix of cereal rye, annual ryegrass, crimson clover, radishes, Austrian winter pea, sweet pea, oats, millet, buckwheat, sorghum sudangrass, turnips, flax, sunflower and Cahaba vetch.
“Cahaba vetch is the only kind of vetch I've ever used just because I’ve always had to concern a hard seed with regular vetch,” Montel says. “The idea is we've got something from the cold-weather legumes and grasses and then the warm-season legumes and grasses, plus your brassicas.”
Montel says his best corn usually follows this intensive mix, most likely due to the predominance of legumes. The deep taproot of radish and sunflower and massive root systems from sorghum-sudangrass and other species are beneficial in building biomass and feeding soil biology, he says.
Soil Pits Don’t Lie
Additionally, Montel is in the fifth year of using the Haney test to gauge soil health. When he started taking samples for the test his soil health scores were between 5 and 6, but that’s improved to 12-14 of late. Frustrations he had early on interpreting results have been addressed with new graphics and charts introduced to make analysis more user friendly, he says.
“The initial knowledge I gained from that test is that I could cut back on N, P and K,” he says, “and that was further confirmation of what I’d learned in previous trials and National No-Tillage Conferences,” Montel says.
Montel’s goal is to start interseeding covers into corn at V4-V6 utilizing a drill or some other machine, “but at this point the cost of buying equipment is a deterrent. I want to keep the cover crop seed cost down.”
But Montel does like what no-tilling and cover crop seeding has done to his silt-, clay- and sandy-loam soils, which he says are very thin and “basically gravel underneath” that create a dry soil environment.
“I've learned to dig soil pits in the last 5 years and we used to have a plow layer with six or eight inches of topsoil on top of that. Now I'm seeing my plow line is going away because the dark topsoil with more organic matter is filtering down,” Montel says. “I think I'm approaching a foot now, just because of the biological activity and the residue.
“Residue is never a trouble. I can have 187 bushels of corn and it's no problem. By the middle of summer most of that is gone. I think our soil’s biological activity is pretty aggressive.”
After six or seven planting seasons that coincide with his soil-improvement efforts, Montel says yields ticked upward, which he attributes to better nutrient cycling in healthier soils. In 2017 his corn yields averaged 187 bushels an acre, well above the county average of 161 bushels. For soybeans the whole-farm average for Montel was 54 bushels per acre, about the county average of 50.
Last year’s record corn and soybean hauls were further proof his management decisions are working.
“Three years ago I saw a pretty big jump on my farm compared to the yields my neighbors had. I know what the county average is because when we sign up for insurance it's posted,” he says. “As I learn from some other farmers, the better my soil health gets the less I have to rely on the insecticides and other chemicals. I quit applying anhydrous ammonia 6 years ago because I felt it was probably detrimental to soil life.”
