Skip-Row Planting As a Strategy for Drought Mitigatio in the West Central Great Plains.

For dryland farmers in the Central Great Plains region (CGPR) mitigating the effects of drought on crop production is critical to successful farming. Skip-row planting of corn and sorghum was developed as a strategy for mitigating drought in the dryland regions of the CGPR. Here we compare 16 site-years of no-till feed grain yields when planted skip-row or (152 cm wide rows) and when planted conventionally in Eastern Colorado and Western Kansas (over half of the locations were on farm replicated trials). The idea is that a wider row arrangement forces a change in the timing of soil-water availability and use, which may mitigate drought stress during the critical flowering period. Three alternative planting schemes were investigated and compared to planting in conventional 0.76m rows (30 inch rows). These were plant 2 rows, skip 2 rows (P2S2); plant 1, skip 1 (P1S1); and a plant 2, skip 1 (P2S1).  Corn plots were seeded with roundup ready hybrids in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007. Sorghum was generally concept protected seed. Some of the sites included variable plant population in combination with alternative planting arrangements. On average the alternative planting arrangements produced greater yields than conventionally planted corn and sorghum. The advantage is most prevalent when yields are less than 3500 kg ha^-1 (50-60 bushels/acre). The effect is not always statistically significant. We did not observe either a disadvantage or an advantage if yields potentials are greater than this up to at least 5000 kg ha-1 (80 bushels/acre). An analysis of these data would suggest, that alternative planting arrangements  (skip-row) show potential for greater yields in dryer areas and/or in dry years where yields are less than 3500 kg ha-1 (56 bushel).