Brian Tanner's challenge is one plenty of Corn Belt farmers would recognize in a heartbeat. Heavy timber-clay soils on his Morton, Ill., farm hold water well into early spring. By the time conditions are right to plant soybeans, he's often already missed the planting timeframe for the highest yield potential.
This year, Tanner decided to stop waiting for fields to dry. He used wheat to help make it happen.
On March 29, he planted soybeans into 500 acres of winter wheat - months before wheat harvest. The wheat pulled excess moisture from soils and provided cover while his soybeans got established underneath the cereal crop.
The relatively new practice, called relay cropping, or intercropping, is gaining attention in the mid-South and Midwest.
"For us, relay cropping means you plant winter wheat as usual and then in the spring come back in and plant soybeans," says Ken Ferrie, Farm Journal field agronomist, based in central Illinois. "The beans are off and running by the time you cut the wheat at the end of June, first part of July."
The Opportunity To Improve Crops and ROI
Tanner, his sons, Brody and Rylen, and their team, farm corn, soybeans, wheat and pumpkins. Tanner had seen from his organic acres that living roots and small grains could improve soil structure.
That led to a question he thought about for several years: What if wheat could pull moisture early in the season and improve his soybeans while putting a wheat check in the bank?
The idea stayed mostly on paper until this spring, when Tanner decided to try it. In the process, he discovered Indiana farmer Jason Mauck, who has spent more than a decade refining relay cropping on his farm. Mauck gave Tanner insights into managing the relationship between wheat and soybeans in a relay system - suggestions Tanner says saved him years of trial and error.
Lower Inputs, Not Higher Wheat Yields
Mauck's strategy isn't about maximizing wheat yields. It's about maximizing the combined productivity of wheat and soybeans, with soybeans providing the lion's share of the ROI.
"What we're trying to do with relay cropping wheat and soybeans is create the same revenue as corn would, but spend a lot less money in the process," Mauck says.
That means deliberately holding back the wheat, not pushing it for maximum yield, because an overly thick stand uses moisture and intercepts sunlight just when soybeans need both. He has found he can cut wheat nitrogen roughly in half and plant about one-quarter of his normal wheat seed rate while still harvesting roughly 70% of a typical wheat yield.
"At about $1 per pound for nitrogen, cutting 60 pounds of nitrogen, along with roughly $50 per acre in seed costs, can reduce wheat expenses by about $140 per acre," he says. "The lower input cost helps keep the overall economics in roughly the same position as a higher-yield, higher-input wheat program, even after accounting for the bushels given up."
Finding the Sweet Spot in 30-Inch Rows
Tanner put Mauck's philosophy to work this year. In his conventional wheat program, Tanner typically plants 2.5 bu. per acre in 7.5-inch rows. On some relay acres, he cut his rate to between 0.5 bu. and 1 bu. per acre in 30-inch rows, based on Mauck's recommendations. So far, he likes what he's seeing.
"It kind of looks like that's the sweet spot in a 30-inch row," says Tanner, who planted 20 different wheat-and-soybean variations this season.
The thinner wheat stand gives soybeans room to develop without eliminating what Tanner wants from the wheat: early moisture use, better soil structure, weed suppression and frost protection.
Using More of the Growing Season
Mauck says relay cropping is fundamentally about using more of the growing season and controlling the farm's water cycle. Keeping living roots in the soil longer improves water use, root health and overall efficiency.
In some years, that approach has pushed Mauck's relay beans past full-season soybeans. Last year, his relay beans averaged 68 bu. per acre - about 2 bu. more per acre than his full-season crop.
Earlier this year, Mauck estimated his relay system generates about $1,320 per acre in revenue with roughly $160 per acre in seed, fertilizer and other inputs. He says that would equate to a 287-bu. corn crop at $4.60 per bushel.
That's not saying relay cropping automatically equals or beats corn. It illustrates Mauck's philosophy that more revenue doesn't necessarily require more inputs.
First-Year Results Show Promise
Tanner's relay wheat crop ranged from 50 bu. to 70 bu. per acre with test weights around 59.5 to 60 pounds. That came after 8 to 10 inches of rain the three weeks before harvest. Those yields compare with 97 bu. per acre on his organically grown drilled wheat.
At $6.60 wheat, Tanner calculates he made about $300 per acre in net revenue after subtracting seed, planting and harvest costs.
At $12 soybeans, he estimates the relay beans could give up roughly 25 bu. per acre compared with his full-season soybeans before the wheat revenue advantage disappears.
Tanner isn't convinced this year's soybeans will stay within that margin.
"[In late August], it looks like there might be a bigger than 25-bu. gap per acre," he says. That's the number he'll be watching as harvest approaches.
Could Relay Cropping Move North?
Ferrie sees potential to push relay cropping farther north, into areas where conventional double-crop soybeans have been a poor fit. Relay cropping can help farmers start soybean planting sooner than they otherwise could. The practice also gives winter wheat a more profitable role in a corn-soybean landscape where wheat struggles to compete for acres.
"Wheat just doesn't cash flow with our corn-soybean rotations today," Ferrie says.
Relay cropping could change that - but only if the combined wheat-soybean crops outperform the alternatives.
Like Tanner, Ferrie is evaluating relay cropping for the first time this season. He expected planting soybeans into standing wheat to cut wheat production by 30 bu. to 40 bu. per acre.
His first-year field plots surprised him. Traditional wheat yielded 97 bu. per acre. Relay wheat yielded about 90 bu.
"I expected a 30- or 40-bu. drop that I'd have to dig out of with the soybean crop," Ferrie says, noting farmers have to do the math to determine whether the numbers can work.
"Start with your normal wheat yield, and then figure what you think you'd give up in a relay system," he says. "Then figure out what soybean yield is required to replace that lost wheat revenue."
Farmers also need to account for straw if it's an annual source of revenue, Ferrie says.
