This isn't really about food plotting, but large fields of winter as a cover crop. Say, after harvest this fall, I want to plant winter rye as a cover crop. What do you do with it in the spring? Spray it? Disc it? Cultivate it? I'd rather not plow it.
I thought about doing this with pumpkins, but I heard that mechanical weeding of escapes can be difficult because of the grass left.
It was the poorest looking bean field around. Could have been a fluke but it was pretty weedy so they had to spray extra times which didn't do the beans any big favors.
I always thought discing it under would be best if possible - Provides the most organic matter and also adds tons of Nitrogen to the field. Rye is one of the few plants capable of taking up nitrogen and then re-releasing it when tilled under the following spring.
Dan, I haven't planted any Rye myself but some of my close friends run a very large cattle operation and they plant it every year. They fly it on with a airplane into all of there standing corn and then cut it for cattle feed in the spring. After they cut it they work it back down with a soil finisher and plant corn again. Sometimes there are some spots that they can't get cut and they try to spray and kill the rye. ITs very hard to kill once it gets big. I believe there is a select window of time I think its a week or two where you can get a good kill on it. AS far as the soil goes it really helps improve the quality.
Thanks Clinton. My biggest concern is how to work it into the soil. It'll be about 30-35 acres that I would be doing and I only have my 13' cultivator to use.
Most of the beneficial organic matter is actually the soil biota that thrive among plant roots, tillage actually kills and lowers soil organic matter. It's actually very difficult to ever "build" SOM with any type of tillage. Dead plant matter is organic matter but is basically just crop residue. Truly healthy soil will mimic a prairie type environment and soil conditions where soil structure can build basd on healthy and balanced soil micro-organisms, bacteria and earth worms. Actually most plants take up nutrients and will cycle it back into the soil. Grass types salvage more nitrogen and hold it in their plant residues and as it breaks down it becomes available to other plants. Legumes salvage P and K and fixate Nitrogen. The grass crops have a higher N/C nitrogen:Carbon ratio than softer legume type crops. Ideally one wants to trap as much carbon as possible to feed the soil microbes...N and C sequestration.
Perfect example of soil with a very very low soil organic matter content. Soils that have been over tilled to the point of .5 - 1.5 SOM content have extremely reduced water retention, poor microbe content and poor structure. It erodes easier and needs more fertilizer and water. As far as working it under, a field cultivator isn't likely to get the job done. You'd have to have a disk or a plow and a disk. I spray it down and roll/crimp it and no-till through it. It does take a couple of applications to kill it all and sometimes there are still a few escapes but so far the benefits have been worth the effort. The first year can be rough, people don't realize that they still need to fertilize for two crops when they plant it due to the sequestration effect where it takes time to start cycling the nutrients back. It also can be tricky to no-till through until a person gets equipment set up right to handle the high residue conditions. Just some guesses as to why the bean field looked poor that was talked about earlier.
Correct. OM is about 1.9 and is a sandy loam. We bought this farm last year. But, for my operation, no till is not an option. We also finally got the irrigation well finished on Monday, which was a pain in the *** process.
You might look into what Christine sort of accidentally mentioned, compost..or more to the point..chicken or turkey litter or dairy manure. Something very similar to the product called "Antler Dirt" (which is over priced). It will pretty much instantly add SOM to your fields if you can find a source. Why is no-till not an option? Just curious.
