Continuous Soybeans

Question

Hello,
I am a REAL first generation farmer (no family in ag) and I am on my 3rd year of producing soybeans in west central Missouri.  I farm approximately 100 acres, some cash rent, some shares, none owned.  When I crunch the numbers I find it difficult to show profitability with corn with a county average yield of 120bu.pr.ac.  Im currently planting around 160k pr acre with 15" rows, using seed cups in a JD7000 planter (30" planter spacing, double back to get 15" rows) with talc powder and Endure inoculant in my seed boxes.  I would appreciate any words of wisdom from experienced growers who have tried this or have seen it done with pros, cons, and any advise you may have?  Thank you in advance for taking the time to respond!

Answer

120 corn seems low if you add some chemicals to it. Keep crunching, I agree corn is fun to grow not much positive value though!

Answer

I am definitely a beginner also but have been doing it for a few years now. Continuous beans are possible but definitely not the best option if you could harvest corn. You may need to change your flavor on beans to keep the weeds out. We had good luck with liberty and our water hemp problem. With today’s fertilizers and chemicals continuous beans are possible, Ideally we would want to do corn once every 3 to 5 years. Hopefully you’ll get more knowledgeable experience but my current trend is to put corn in every three years. Around these parts, 17 years continuous beans has been done by a pretty decent farmer. Visit a coffee shop and get more info. That’s my two cents.

Answer

I've had good success using winter covercrops like cereal rye to help break the disease cycle. 100# broadcast with maintenance fertilizer in the fall suppresses marestail and waterhemp too. Just notill into it in the spring and and your first Glysophate application will kill it dead. Be sure to terminate the rye before it heads out.

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Continuous Soybeans

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