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| Jim,
The idea has always been to have the plants more crowded in the row than between the rows. This reduces machinery costs (fewer openers across a given width) and, in the case of sorghum (or wheat), tends to slightly reduce the number of tillers retained by the plant (which is usually a net benefit) because of the crowding.
There are indeed some benefits to skip-row or paired-row, depending on the climate, the crop, and the spacings used. In wheat or barley, for instance, there is value in having a wider gap for air to move, keeping the canopy a bit drier and reducing leaf disease. In extremely dry conditions, there is value in having summer crops (sorghum, corn, cotton) on skip-row patterns. However, note that if a favorable weather pattern occurs, the (summer crop) advantages of skip-row quickly turn into major disadvantages. And this is the crux -- if you are too conservative on your *average* row spacing, you give up a lot of yield in the good years, plus your weed suppression really suffers. | |
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Dryland Corn Plant
