HuntingNet.com Forums - My 2005 Cheat Sheet for Planting Corn

Here's my cheat sheet for next year.

From my Corn experiment this year - I learned that by appying a little more Nitrogen/acre, and by increasing the distance between seeds at planting - I can increase yield & spend less in seed, gas and roundup.

I got some of my information from: http://agronomyday.cropsci.uiuc.edu/...nitrogen-need/

For those who might plant corn, this might be helpful. I didn't break out the dollars - but suffice it to say that adding more Urea is MUCH Cheaper than planting more seed, and or working more acres. About 150 bushels acre seems to be about the maximum to shoot for - anything more may or may not add to the yield.
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2004 – corn-planting facts (all numbers rounded down)

1 acre = 209 x 209 ft

with 30” rows = 83 rows can be planted in 209 ft

if one corn stalk every 8” –
then: 313 stalks per row x 83 rows = 25,979 plants/acre (approx)

One Bag of 80,000 kernels will plant just over 3 acres.

43,560 x 144 = 6,272,630 square inches per acre.

Divide 6,272,640 by inches of row width to obtain inches of row per acre (6,272,640 ÷ 30 = 209,088). 209,088 / 8” between seeds = 26,136 seeds planted/acre

There are 70 lbs per bushel of eared corn
There are 56 lbs/bushel of shelled corn

Average farm rates for eared corn is about 150 bushels per acre

Our New Goal 150 x 70 = 10,700 lbs/acre
Our Old Goal - 100 x 70 = 7,000 lbs/acre

Optimum N rates for Corn planting = about 1.0 N per bushel

Our new goal for 150 bushels/acre
We would need 150 lbs N = this would equal 326 lbs of 46-0-0 Urea/acre

Our goal has been in the past – 100 bushels/acre.
We would need 100 lbs N/acre = this would equal 217 lbs of 46-0-0 Urea/acre

One must consider residual N – (subtract the N results from soil test – from the above)