Got Done Harvest!!!

[wmoebis]

Would be interesting to see stats on quality from organic / conv. by the CGC.

[farmaholic]

The old method of summerfallow did more damage to this farm than I care to admit. Between wind and water erosion it has taken its toll. Continuous cropping has made things better but comes with a new set of challenges: increased costs and disease pressures in these last few wet years. Adapt adapt adapt, maybe not intense summerfallow but some tillage may not be the end of the world. When the dry cycle returns, and I'm sure it will, no till continuous cropping won't suffer the problems we're facing today. Back to moisture conservation and less disease, maybe less grain but probably better quality and hopefully better prices. The system that was developed in the Eighties isn't working real well in this wet cycle. High maintenance verticle tillage tools(after several years of use) will be sitting on fence lines or in hedge rows when it dries up again but for now it is exactly what the doctor ordered!!! We will go it again without tillage for 2015, I know the limitations of my farm and we have varying soil the short distance our farm is spread across. Light to a more clay base and everything in between. We also haven't suffered the severe wetness some others have been dealing with, we've had about 15 inches of rain this season, the land has moisture in it and some low spots(unseeded) really never got much smaller from seeding in spring and others in the lighter land disappeared but will likely be full next spring. So, 2015 could be a totally different year, we might be relying on the subsoil or cursing the rain that does come and sometimes relentlessly. Let's hope we all get the rain we need and not in excess. I would definitely welcome a year without the disease pressure we've been encountering. Funny how out 2014 durum was so good, yield and quality, and 2015 is the exact opposite(even with all the fungicide applications). Just goes to show who is boss, all you can do is play the cards you've been dealt the best you know how but Mother Nature still plays the last card, and is the dealer....

Happy ThanksGiving Everyone!!!

Take Care...

[Braveheart]

I was very involved with Pesticide Free Production back when. The research showed that having an understory growth of clover or hairy vetch, something under seeded, did keep fus levels lower as the sores got caught in the understory and had trouble making it to the head. There still are spores in the atmosphere to infect though.

Best solution is rotation, sowing varieties that have some resistance, and properly timed fungicides.

Burning or tillage will only degrade the soil. Yes there is wind and water erosion.

The biggest erosion comes from tillage erosion. Those things on the bottom of cultivators are called shovels. They move dirt. Most fields around here are rolling and tilling neighbours have pulled soil off knolls down to b-horizon. Read Dr. David Lobb's thesis ( U of M) re tillage erosion.

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]

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.