Wallaces Farmer

How to farm entire field — even between corn rows

By allowing more sunlight into the canopy, wide corn rows tap the potential for a companion crop.

Gil Gullickson, editor of Wallaces Farmer

October 24, 2024

2 Min Read
field peas planted between wide-row corn rows
PEAS PACK PUNCH. Crops such as field peas planted between wide-row corn rows create potential for two crops to be raised annually in the same field.Gil Gullickson

Did you ever wish you could grow two cash crops in one field during the same growing season?

These days, maybe you can.

Bob Recker, Cedar Valley Innovation owner, and Todd Whiting, Origin Technologies president, are testing ways to grow an in-season cash crop between corn rows spaced 60 and 90 inches apart. It’s feasible due to the extra sunlight the wider rows allow for the companion crop, they say.

In one 2023 trial, they planted field peas in early May, two days after corn planting within the wide rows. They sprayed corn for weeds before field pea emergence.

“Due to favorable weather, the peas got ahead of the corn,” Whiting says, “but both crops grew to maturity very well.”

Since they grew the peas in small research plots, the duo hand-picked every pod at harvest on Aug, 1. Were it a commercial field, the 50-bushel-per-acre yield priced at the then-$10-per-acre price could have grossed $500 per acre.

Pea perks

Field peas have impressive attributes as a companion crop, Whiting says.

They tolerate shading by the corn. “Very few weeds grew in the rows until later in the year, when the leaves started drying up and sunlight started poking through,” Whiting says. That’s important, since they could not use herbicides on the field peas without damaging the corn.

Since this concept is in its early stages, the duo has concentrated data collection on field peas, not corn and resulting yields. They note 2023 weather that turned hot in August negatively impacted corn performance. By then, though, the first pea plantings had already been harvested.

Potential exists for other companion crops, such as buckwheat and turnips. However, Recker notes this research is first focused on agronomics.

“After we get the agronomy part figured out, we need to examine the economics, such as what peas are worth versus corn,” he says. “Then, we will get into the equipment question, such as what works best for planting and harvesting. What we’ve done so far is to encourage people to open their minds and trigger some thoughts.”

About the Author

Gil Gullickson

editor of Wallaces Farmer, Farm Progress

Gil Gullickson grew up on a farm that he now owns near Langford, S.D., and graduated with an agronomy degree from South Dakota State University. Earlier in his career, he spent 13 years as a Farm Progress editor, covering Minnesota and the Dakotas.

Gullickson is a widely respected and decorated ag journalist, earning the Agricultural Communicators Network writing award for Writer of the Year three times, and winning Story of the Year four times. He is a past winner of the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists’ Food and Agriculture Organization Award for Food Security. He has served as president of both ACN and the North American Agricultural Journalists.

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