My guess is that you've never had some of our clays to play with. With a good rain "sometimes" seed will take.
Depends on precisely what you're talking about. You said no-till, which to me means planting with a no-till planter or drill, in which case there shouldn't be an issue with seed growing. If you're talking about just broadcasting seed on top of the ground, yes...that doesn't always work on heavy clay soil with some species of plants but I have yet to see clover and alfalfa not take on it. We have some plots in area where top soil was taken off down to pure clay and I got good results just broadcasting clover and alfalfa in there through crab grass. That clay is so tight and poor even grass doesn't want to grow in it. Plants with small, hard seed are generally pretty potent and more so than most people think.
With our clays we have a hard time with either method. Some of the "new GMO" alfalfas do better but still don't do well with a broadcast approach without some sort of loosening of the soil. Without the benefit of rain, the seeds just don't germinate unless they are covered. I was under the impression that grunts was going to just try to broadcast seed and that was my main reason to push him into some sort of tilling/stirring up before he planted.
He said he thought he'd try to till it and I said I'd just broadcast it before a rain. From what I can see in his pic and based off the fact he said he was on the NC coast next to a corn field, I'm guessing he probably doesn't have a problem with dry and heavy clay but I'm not familiar with the area either.
Lol, nah I doubt it. He could try tilling half of it and broadcasting half of it and decide for himself if it was worth the effort of tilling it.
I don't know what the weather is like there but if it's decent I might be up for it. We're getting flooded with cold rain and supposed to switch over to snow tomorrow. I flipping hate winter...
I took the mowing deck off my compact tractor and put the bucket on in anticipation of winter and sadly enough, I could/should mow my lawn again! Not complaining on the heating bills this year, after last year when we had some of our coldest weather on record. All I know is that if this is global warming.......... I like it!!!!!!!
How hard is it to rake the soil? Most soil that way is rather sandy so you might be able to get away with broadcasting and raking it in. The more you can do to help the seed survive upfront the better off you will be. But at the same time that depends on you time and resources. If you have little time what CoveyMaster suggests is best. If you have some time and thing more you can do will help. Either way good luck grunt and keep us posted.
Also this year I did quite a few no till plots and they worked great. Bears, turkey and deer loved them. I just raked the leaves and pine needles away, threw down some AntlerKing NoSweat and prayed for rain at end of August and walked away. It came up lush and animals are still hitting them since we don't have acorns this year. Gonna do some more in 2016 as well as beans and some clover plots.
It doesn't work out 100% of the time but then again they don't with tillage either, lol. I think most tillage guys would be really surprised at how well and how often it does work though. I'd like to have all the time back I wasted doing tillage over the years, along with fuel and money for equipment use/wear/tear. Most of the time even doing tillage I had to worry about getting a rain because I tilled the moisture out of the soil. It makes a lot of sense, weeds and brush don't need tillage and they thrive, why should a crop be any different...short answer is it shouldn't.
I've only done minimal tillage on my plots one time otherwise it's always broadcast and either drug, raked or just let the rain do it's job. With the seeds the other guys mentioned and the looks of your plot area, seed to soil contact is all you're going to need.
I wouldn't worry about it until you're a couple weeks away from your last freeze (Assuming you freeze up during winter?)
