Got Done Harvest!!!

[Braveheart]

Sumdumguy, summer fallow? Really? Instead, sow it down to alfalfa/grass and sell hay for a few years. Then rotate it around. Improved soil, better returns, happy cows somewhere. Sell it standing if you don't have or want haying equipment.

Side benefit, less grain on the market.

[sumdumguy]

I have tried the hay route on a quarter at White City. I give it away every year.

[Klause]

Sweet clover. Sell sees build organic matter

[furrowtickler]

It's not about going from one extreme to anouther - it about doing a balance and is easily achievable if one takes off the blinders from both ends of the spectrum

[hedgehog]

just grow clover?

[sumdumguy]

What about Timothy seed? Anyone have experience?

[blackpowder]

Furrow nailed it.

[parsley]

Had to look up the acronym, sumdum. Playing with perennial ancient grains, here . And I agree wih furrow. Farmers need to take the blinders off every chance they get. Pars

[agchat]

"Bored Hutterites fill ditches with topsoil every winter. If anyone can't see that will be a problem, I just don't know what to say."
Braveheart you may want to explain what crops they are working, and with what they are working it with. I do know for a fact that worked cereal crops in the fall spiked or sweeped will not blow. Have done it off and on my entire farming career of 38 years and have never ever saw them blow. Other crops like pulses may be a different story.

[Braveheart]

No pulses. Canola stubble, wheat stubble. Three or more passes with 4" reversables. 6 mph.

I used to do it. I know tillage.

Also, I'll bring it up again. On our farm, the economics don't support tillage.

I don't wear blinders. I'll look at anything. I just don't want to compromise on the health or security of our soil. It is one of our goals to protect it.

[countryguy]

I was as die hard of a zero tiller as the rest of them UNTIL two springs ago I did fire guard to burn off some grass seed stubble and had twice the crop in the fire guard as the rest of the field. Field didn't get worked last fall and again this year there was twice the crop in that fire guard.So now **** it everything gets worked. No one pays me to protect the soil and I'm in this business to make money and now really don't give two shits what shape the soil is in after I'm under it.

[agchat]

They must be bored to do that many passes.

[Braveheart]

The suspenders to polka dots ratio is off.

[agchat]

Each to there own, but more importantly i do believe your you live and what your soil is like is the answer to the almighty question. I myself am working some of my stubbles this year because of 19 inches of rain since may. In 2011 us old time " strokers" got some crop in because of our stupidity of tillage, while at that time the firm one pass boys all they could do was watch us seed some land. I see this year they are working the vast majority of there cereal stubbles also, some with the new vertical tillage tools.

[Braveheart]

The thing is, your farms are your own property. Do with them as you wish and enjoy them.