The purpose of this demonstration was to determine whether seeding tillage radishes in the post-harvest season would improve soybean productivity the following year. Since radishes has high N residue, it may help to break down wheat straw and improve conditions for soybean planting. This was evaluated with no-till, min-till (spring harrowing) and spring cultivation to also evaluate the effect of land preparation on soybean productivity.

Tillage radishes were seeded in September 2014, considerably later than would be ideal due to poor harvesting conditions for the previous crop. This left little time for growth of the radishes. The radishes emerged and grew in October, but due to cool conditions above-ground growth was small so it seemed unlikely that they would have a significant effect.

While the impact of the radishes may have not been large, the trial still gave us a good opportunity to test the effect of land preparation treatments. Treatments did not seem to result in differences in plant heights or pod clearance, which are often an indication of a physiological effect of establishment conditions. Yields were also not noticeably or significantly affected by treatments.