Corn on broke pasture?

[countryguy]

I broke a 50 acre pasture this fall with the intention of growing some grazing corn next year,but some of the people I talk to seem to frown on this idea.

Has anyone done this before and what if any problems have you encountered?Any varieties or diffent production systems that stand out that you would recommend?Seed treatments?

Thanks for any help.

[shamus]

where are you located ?

[cowman]

Not a great authority on corn but I would suspect broke pasture land might tend to be pretty dry? If you sprayed it out with Roundup before breaking it might be a lot better? That pretty well is the case with cereal crops and canola on sod also?
The locals here all grow Roundup ready corn and it is virtually weed free! Some of the corn crops that were grown pre-RR corn were nothing but a weed patch!
I think once a corn crop gets going it can take some drought fairly well? It seems to have pretty deep roots.
The Daines family grows quite a bit of grazing corn north of Innisfail, Alberta and their cows were out practically all of last winter grazing and were fat and sassy!

[cowman]

Like Jack ?????????

[mb_rancher]

I ve grown corn on broke sod b4 and so long as you make sure you use a RR variety you will be ok with the grass and weed problem. The only thing I would suggest is that you put on at least 90 lbs of nitrogen. This is what I have found. If you do that you will be good to go.

[cowman]

Emerald:Yea, Jack and his eight brothers! They have a pretty big farm and are quite a little corporation that includes a purebred operation, several western stores, a casino, auction mart, rodeo grounds, real estate business,apartments, oil interests and who knows what else!
The generation before them had about 6 or seven boys too! They are an old time pioneer family that goes away back. Good people who have done a lot to build this area up.

[nicolaas]

I agree with mb_rancher. Since it is pasture land, there probably won't be a lot left in the soil. Take a soil test. Remember, there is no other crop with the appetite for N2 than corn. It may be better to grow oats for swathgrazing - probably a lot more economical.

[dalek]

We break up hay or pasture ground of some kind every year to plant corn, it works well but you have to get on top of both fertility and weed control early. The oldest we've ever broken up was ground we bought that last grew a crop of hemp in the early 60s then was allowed to grow up in wild grasses until we bought it in 95. We offset disked 10' willow trees and 6' of grass and some leftover hemp and got a good corn crop that year. Nothing will let you clean up old pastures like corn as long as you stay on the weed control early. RR would be worthwhile but I would burn it off before planting as well.

[PureCountry]

Some of the practices you guys mentioned make me cringe.

But anyway you slice it, don't do anything w/o a good soil test. Just got mine back for some pasture land and one crop sample. The crop sample was by far the most depleted and will take the most TLC to turn around.

[cowman]

I find it interesting that the hemp was still there? Must be hardy stuff to still be surviving after about forty years!
I've often wondered if the government could get over their paranoia about hemp, just how profitable it might be? Seems like the darned stuff has a lot of growth and they say the oil from seeds is very good stuff? It also seems to be pretty leafy?
I wonder how it might stack up as a forage crop if taken at a fairly young age? Or can cows even eat it?