How soon after tillage do you plant?

With a large amount of tillage following the dry and warm winter of 2011-2012 and dry summer in 2012 that lead to compaction issues, we will likely see a large amount of spring tillage in 2013.  An often overlooked area of yield loss can come from working ground well ahead of the planter, especially on a dry year.  In 2012, we had several farms where tillage was completed 2-5 days ahead of planting resulting in yield losses from 10-20 bushels and reduced populations from poor germination and emergence.  In one particular instance, a customer worked a field a day ahead of planting, quit planting half way through the field and came back the next night to finish planting.  In this field the extra day of drying on the worked ground lead to a 15 bushel yield loss.  It's not hard to fathom how this can happen when 1,000 ears/plants can equal a 7 bushel loss. 

While we are focusing a lot of time on planting depth and proper closing of the seed trench, time also has to be spent working on timing of tillage in relation to planting.  The time you spend before that seed is put in the ground ultimately determines it's yield potential.