No Till Notes: Drilling Beans

We decided this year to go back to drilling our edible bean crop rather than use the 15 inch planter we have used over the past several years. We saw some agronomic advantages to going back to using the drill which plants the beans in 7.5 inch rows.

The narrower row spacing should help with weed control in our fields by developing a faster crop canopy which will compete better with weeds than the wider row spacings. Our main concern with weed pressure is the palmer amaranth weed which we first discovered last year in one of our fields.

We also felt the narrower row spacing should encourage the...