60” blocks of corn 60” gaps I believe this will outyield solid corn due to plant phenotyping coupled with amplified night time cooling. This IMO is useful for continuous corn, in season manure applications and potential grazing after harvest.

I have a trial in northern Minnesota. They are trying to diversify species and build soil organic matter/health on irrigated ground. Really interested to see what it is going to yield.

How do you plan on keeping the 60” of no corn clean of weeds all season?

Great concept. Downside, have seen it turn into absolute train wrecks for weeds in the gaps late season though

60" organic corn last year. Clover and turnips flown on after last cultivation. Cattle turned out right after. Moved over 30" and doing it again this year

What do you run for population on the corn to offset the missing rows? We are experimenting with 40” blocks in our corn this year

56k on edge 42 center 2

I think that holds promise here - nemesis is night time heat. Already have it seeded but think I could make it into something sorta like that and on a field we will have cows on.

So is this better than 20 inch

Do you see any issues with additional weed pressure not having a cover of any sort suppressing the 60 inch gap? This has always intrigued me. Seems like a guy could lower N rates significantly.

For sure. We sprayed this twice instead of once like our 20” Starting from scratch here we could cheat that with a rye strip over the winter that we could kill during a 1 pass post system. That’d be the idea. Of course your cover crop probably cost as much as a herbicide pass Also you could devise a system to spray a higher rate in the gap. When ai used to spray corn 60’ at a time I’d double spray the tram lines of 40” to do that

Have you applied any kind of fertilizers previosly to the seedtime? (also the manure)

Run your spinner broadcaster to put rye down six weeks before your first frost date to get the greatest rye plant mulch mass cover in the spring. Since your corn leaves are gaping, can you get one or two more rows of corn crowding your alley? It's going to be corn variety dependent, maybe a way to select different varieties for yet more vertical leaves and squeeze another row.

You’re missing the point of all this. I need a big gap for tires of a manure tank. And to flip flop the corn to not fight the high yield corn next year. That is our biggest bugaboo on our farm. 5 million gallons of manure and continuous 20” corn. The stalks keep the soil cooler and wetter and tie up Nitrogen

What bureaucracy stands in the way of other farmers experimenting to increase production? Crop insurance? Seed company rules? I get that big ag funds ag schools then bought research like Roundup safety. But is selling 10% less seed worth scuttling good research?

Report back to us this Fall, not matter how it goes.

Corn spacing innovation highlights agronomy’s future. Neem cake boosts USA organic farming—partner with our eco‑materials for sustainable soil health and resilient yields.

Calmer of the Corn Head company and Dr Fred Below did research growing corn on 20inch and 15inch rows to give corn roots more space while achieving higher plant populations. 15inch might be something to try in your system if you haven't yet.

20” for 20 years. I’d be down for 15” for even better weed control and get my tram rows to 30”

Out west the tried 60” corn ended up getting too much erosion between the rows of corn. Real low pop mafia kind of deal compared to yours. Could also consider middle of the 60” corn fallowed so insurance worked a little better.

It may out yield. But weed control would be be pretty tough.

Mind the gap

So, you're taking the 60" gaps out of production in perpetuity? The soil compaction from dragging the manure slurry goes pretty deep and ruins yield the next time it is planted. If growing silage, the forage harvester doesn't leave much for grazing, but you already know that.