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Curious to See Everyone's Opinions...

P

PureCountry

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 25, 2005
Messages
2,684
Location
Edgewood, BC, moving to Hardisty, AB
We cut and baled 200 acres of wheat that got hailed real hard. It's our land, but the crop was the renter's. It's been regrowing now for almost a month, and it's anywhere from 8-30" high in places. What I'm wondering is, what would you guys do? Spray it out, till it in, or heavy harrow it?

I wouldn't spray, but I'm leaning towards talking the guy into tilling it in to try and build something that resembles an organic layer. It's absolute blowsand for land. Any thoughts?
 
is the regrowth still green and have feed value or is it worthless? with the hay situation a lot of folks are having baling the regrowth and splitting with the renter and then just putting the hay in inventory for next year couldn't be a bad plan.

If there is no feed value out of it, tilling it under would be the best option as your going to be adding to your carbon levels as it decomposes and give yourself the organic layer you spoke of. Just spraying and let leave is realy opening yourself up to disease and other such problems.
 
NR nailed it; you'll get the best value for the least inputs with your cows! You can take anywhere from a light grazing to a total nuke depending on what you want to do........free fert too
 
Best for the land is till it under...green manure is wonderful especially for sandy soils.

The cows eating it is an excellent way to use the material cost free, the tillage will cost.
 
If you're not going to graze it, spray it.

To build organic matter you need to notill it. If you farm/till it you will acutally decrease organic matter. Trust me on this one. This is probably the only question on here that I'm truly qualified to answer. When you farm it under that aerates the soils and stimulates microbial action which will accelerate decomposition of the organic matter. Plus, it takes away your ground cover & lets the sand blow.

If I'm guessing right & you're in one of the more arid regions (ie Central/Western South Dakota), then the organic matter on the soil tests should be in the 1.5-2.5% range. As you go north, organic matter can increase in the soil at a faster rate b/c of the extreme cold & the length of the growing season. Plus they have a lot of the glacial soils. Down here, if we farm it continously, organic matter will stabilize out at 1-1.5%. If you truly want to build organic matter, either no-till it or start fertilizing it with manure from a feedyard. Those are the quickest ways to build OM. Or just call your State university and ask to speak with a soil scientist. They'll straighten you out in a hurry.

Phil

EDIT: Ok, I somehow missed reading PC's location :oops: , so I would say that his OM content on the soils should be fairly decent to begin with. I'd still say to notill it, and call your province's ag university for the best answer.
 
We have one field that we have been grazing the the crop off off and than coming in with a batwing and shreading the weeds that the cattle didn't want... Just had it soil tested and the Organic Matter is significantly better than what it was when we last tested it 5 years ago when we were growing corn on it. This is a borderline blowsand field in parts that while highly fertile usually has drouth problems unless you get perfect precip..

Can't tell you if it was the 4 legged combines or shreading or a combo of both but it has built up realy good.... Have a few cornfiels that I am looking at planting some cereal rye in and letting the cows help out a bit on too..
 
pknoeber said:
If you're not going to graze it, spray it.

To build organic matter you need to notill it. If you farm/till it you will acutally decrease organic matter. Trust me on this one. This is probably the only question on here that I'm truly qualified to answer. When you farm it under that aerates the soils and stimulates microbial action which will accelerate decomposition of the organic matter. Plus, it takes away your ground cover & lets the sand blow.

If I'm guessing right & you're in one of the more arid regions (ie Central/Western South Dakota), then the organic matter on the soil tests should be in the 1.5-2.5% range. As you go north, organic matter can increase in the soil at a faster rate b/c of the extreme cold & the length of the growing season. Plus they have a lot of the glacial soils. Down here, if we farm it continously, organic matter will stabilize out at 1-1.5%. If you truly want to build organic matter, either no-till it or start fertilizing it with manure from a feedyard. Those are the quickest ways to build OM. Or just call your State university and ask to speak with a soil scientist. They'll straighten you out in a hurry.

Phil

EDIT: Ok, I somehow missed reading PC's location :oops: , so I would say that his OM content on the soils should be fairly decent to begin with. I'd still say to notill it, and call your province's ag university for the best answer.
Click to expand...

Question for you Phil -

We have not had a plow on our land for about 15 years. In order to plant corn after cereals/wheat, we used to give the stubble a light cultivation in the spring with the C-tine cultivator, but have not even done that for the past few years.

Our organic matter ranges from 4.0 to 5.3 on our relatively light textured clay-loam land. All of our land gets covered with about 12 -14 tons of solid cow manure in a two year span.

O.K., here is the question - do you know if it is true that no-tilled land will experience a significant yield increase in the first few years that it is returned to conventional plow and till and cropping ? Some say that putting all the accumulated surface organic matter down into the root zone stimulates tremendous plant development. Any experience or opinion?

Thank you.
 
Maple Leaf Angus said:
pknoeber said:
If you're not going to graze it, spray it.

To build organic matter you need to notill it. If you farm/till it you will acutally decrease organic matter. Trust me on this one. This is probably the only question on here that I'm truly qualified to answer. When you farm it under that aerates the soils and stimulates microbial action which will accelerate decomposition of the organic matter. Plus, it takes away your ground cover & lets the sand blow.

If I'm guessing right & you're in one of the more arid regions (ie Central/Western South Dakota), then the organic matter on the soil tests should be in the 1.5-2.5% range. As you go north, organic matter can increase in the soil at a faster rate b/c of the extreme cold & the length of the growing season. Plus they have a lot of the glacial soils. Down here, if we farm it continously, organic matter will stabilize out at 1-1.5%. If you truly want to build organic matter, either no-till it or start fertilizing it with manure from a feedyard. Those are the quickest ways to build OM. Or just call your State university and ask to speak with a soil scientist. They'll straighten you out in a hurry.

Phil

EDIT: Ok, I somehow missed reading PC's location :oops: , so I would say that his OM content on the soils should be fairly decent to begin with. I'd still say to notill it, and call your province's ag university for the best answer.
Click to expand...

Question for you Phil -

We have not had a plow on our land for about 15 years. In order to plant corn after cereals/wheat, we used to give the stubble a light cultivation in the spring with the C-tine cultivator, but have not even done that for the past few years.

Our organic matter ranges from 4.0 to 5.3 on our relatively light textured clay-loam land. All of our land gets covered with about 12 -14 tons of solid cow manure in a two year span.

O.K., here is the question - do you know if it is true that no-tilled land will experience a significant yield increase in the first few years that it is returned to conventional plow and till and cropping ? Some say that putting all the accumulated surface organic matter down into the root zone stimulates tremendous plant development. Any experience or opinion?

Thank you.
Click to expand...

Yes, you will have a good few years b/c the microbes are breaking down massive amounts of the OM and turning it into a form of nitrate that is readily available for the crops. Basically what's happening is that the microbes are releasing several years worth of nutrients at once. Of course, after about 2-3-4 years of cropping/plowing your OM will have dropped by quite a bit and you'll then have to start upping the fertilizer rates to maintain fertility levels.

At least that's what happens down here. I know that with the colder seasons & shorter growing season up there, things will be quite a bit different than our results, but the basic science is the same. It may take longer for it to happen though, because even the little critters don't like to work in that kind of cold!

Hope this helps.
Phil
 
If I remember correctly the drier you are also influences the break down of OM into a healthy soil. Around here we are warm and humid for most of the summer and the microbes, fungi and invertabrates really tear into anything that lays around dead be it plant material or possum the dogs picked off. Here today, gone tomorrow. I remember people talking about burning stuble out in Montana because the time it would take to break down the stuble was a lot longer as the microbes didn't have the time they do in warmer, moister, longer growing season areas. I might be off base as this class was almost 10 years ago (hard to believe how fast time flies)...

Duringour soil test this year the 5 filed swe had tested ranged from 3.5% in an alfalfa field that was converted to pasture this year all the way to 6%.. As soon as we get our Potash levels up and our pH levels in bounds mt guess is we will see a slight increase in those levels over the years as cow manure gets deposited and more forage gets trampled into the ground with our mob grazing.

On a second note, PUrecountry... When I posted pictures and commented on a thin stand you suggested it might be Mag that was the problem.. well, good call, that field needed some Mag in a major way...
 
Just got back to this, and I don't know if I'll answer all of your answers but here goes -

NR - can't graze it - no fences, no water.

Elwapo - we had it tested before we baled it, and the nitrates were below 0.1%.

pknoeber - sounds like you have a passion for soils like I do. As for our Organics - this field tested 1% OR LESS. I sent samples to Brookside Labs in Ohio, mainly because of their affiliation with Dr. William Albrecht's work, and the results for this field were scary. The pH was between 5.1-5.4, so we've got some work ahead of us. We're defficient in copper and boron, very low in calcium, and the CEC is subpar to say the least.

I'd like to put on manure and straw from every neighbour in the area, but I can't afford doing that every year. And you have to do things that work with what your renter wants to do. But, like I said, we've got alot of work ahead of us before it'll resemble 'soil' again.
 
IL Rancher - glad to hear you got a few samples done. That's interesting stuff. What are you going to do for Mag?



Another question for everyone - Are any of you trying, or have you tried, compost tea? On tame pasture, native, or crop, just wondering what any experiences have been. Recent article in ACRES-USA named some organic producers in Sask and Manitoba that have had good success with it, and do it on a fairly large scale.
 
Thank you Phil and IL. Rancher. Because my location is in Southern Ontario in the lee of Lake Huron, we have much more moderate conditions than my western and northern compatriots. Even so, we do have fewer DDG's or heat units than you southern guys accumulate in a season.

At about 2700-2800 heat units though, usually combined with ample moisture throughout the growing season, we do achieve fairly rapid decomposition of residues.

As a side note, I would say that the crops in our part of the world are about the best that we have ever seen. There is going to be one heck of a scramble for storage when the soys and corn come off as there is still quite a bit of old crop laying around. :( :( New bins are going up in rapid fashion.

Thank goodness in the last 5 years I have turned most of my land over to grass with "four-legged combines" on it! :-)
 
Pure Country, I have only heard of it being used on a small scale in domestic and organic uses. The results are quite astounding from what I have been told. One of the benefits is the suppression of fungii on the crop. That in itself has got to be a big help to the plant.
 

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