Has anyone tried subsoiling ?

[boarderbloke]

Just wondering what experiences anyone here, has had with subsoiling. Interested in results from working low spots, flats, or shallows on flat land. Does it improve the disappearance of ponding water from spring runoff? How deep does one need to go to see results? How long will the tillage show results? Any opinion on subsoiling saline areas to improve drainage?

[Guest]

Just wondering what experiences anyone here, has had with subsoiling. Interested in results from working low spots, flats, or shallows on flat land. Does it improve the disappearance of ponding water from spring runoff? How deep does one need to go to see results? How long will the tillage show results? Any opinion on subsoiling saline areas to improve drainage?

Neighbor did a few years back i sure didnt see sny great improvement ? Lots of fuel , check for underground lines first phone lines can be shallow

[bucket]

Try tillage radish. Amazing plant.

[farmaholic]

Use Gen or Flexicoil stealth seed openers....lol.

[furrowtickler]

Thought about doing subs piling as well in low areas on about 5 - 6 1/4's
I see what your saying case but we are not typically over wet - and I know that can change
But we have very heavy yellow clay under these areas that will not let water through and these particular field can not be tile drained any where so subsoil tillage may work ? I Duno but I may try it this fall "if it works out " lol . Time will tell

[Guest]

we're subsoiling with combine duals this year, lol

[furrowtickler]

Good luck , ya even though we are getting annoyed with pissy rains every 24 hrs we are not dealing with water
Good on you guys for "keeping the wheels turning "
There are guys not far from here that have been combining fairly steady and dodging most showers . Good to see other areas making progress

[Braveheart]

I agree on the tillage radish although it's a bit late to get the full effect.

Re sub soiling in saline areas, it may have the opposite effect in that it may (likely) will allow water to flow upwards easier making the salinity worse.

[seabass]

Need lots of hp and time. Slow process. Didnt see great results but didnt hurt. One thing I did notice the following year was the sprayer had to work twice as hard with the skinny tires on. Definitely softened it up.

[Jay-mo]

Around here subsoiling will give your stonepicker lots of work!

[farmaholic]

I thought I was told that the freeze/thaw cycle in our climate helps break up compaction. Any thoughts?

I do know that the damn sprayer, in fields that are overall uniform in size and shape every year, leaves trails on headlands and throughout the field.... It's gotten to the point we have changed how we spray some fields .... instead of east/west go north/south or vise versa.

Salford vertical tillage?

[bluefargo]

I thought I was told that the freeze/thaw cycle in our climate helps break up compaction. Any thoughts?

I do know that the damn sprayer, in fields that are overall uniform in size and shape every year, leaves trails on headlands and throughout the field.... It's gotten to the point we have changed how we spray some fields .... instead of east/west go north/south or vise versa.

Salford vertical tillage?

As far as I know the only place where subsoiling might help is on solzonetzic (sp) soils. They are also known as hard pan soils. As I recall there were some in the Weyburn area and Vegreville and lots of other places too.
I can't imagine doing doing this routinely to just any soil.

[freewheat]

As far as I know the only place where subsoiling might help is on solzonetzic (sp) soils. They are also known as hard pan soils. As I recall there were some in the Weyburn area and Vegreville and lots of other places too.
I can't imagine doing doing this routinely to just any soil.

Like ^^^^

[AlbertaFarmer5]

I've been experimenting with subsoiling. 5 shank V 3pt converted to pull type. I go up to 2 feet deep. This is on grey wooded soil which compacts like concrete and does not let water or roots in. This will be my fourth year. Don't have any concrete yield data to say that it pays, but anecdotally, I've seen enough to keep experimenting.
Not doing the entire farm, just the areas that hold water on the surface indefinitely, are usually short on fibre and compact terribly. Trying to get the sidehills to not have standing water for weeks after a rain....Expectation is to repeat in perhaps 5 year intervals, hopefully even less often if I can avoid compacting in the first place. Trying to rip in such a direction that it can leave channels for the water to flow down hill, as all of these areas have natural slope, but still drown out the crop. Acres I did in fall of 2014, very dry, good conditions for shattering, were obvious all summer, I could see the straight line diagonally across the quarter where I started, with the barley crop so much heavier on the ripped side that it lodged right up to the line, and only much later on the other side. This year being so dry, I couldn't see a visible difference in crop on three different soil types that I tried, but I also lost a lot of moisture in the subsoiled ground vs the rest of the direct seeded ground, as the gashes were open for months after the snow melted so early, so that likely cancelled out any benefit I might have realized by allowing roots and water to penetrate deeper.

Fall of 14, I also managed to rip the subsoiler in two, to give you an idea how hard this ground is. This was on crop land where I had fed cattle the winter and spring before. Came up in basketball sized chunks, 5 shanks could spin out or stall 400 HP with 8 Michelins.

Farmer I bought it from was also local, he said he had discovered that Alfalfa roots did a better job cheaper, which I can easily agree with, except the areas I'm doing have no hope of growing alfalfa in their state. If they would grow Alflafla, I wouldn't need to rip, a viscous circle. I'd like to try tillage radish, but it would mean losing an entire crop year, as we already use the entire snow free period to seed, grow and harvest a crop. Still worth an experiment.

Frost does an excellent job on the top soil, especially in the spring freezing and thawing saturated soil daily, but in my opinion is not very effective below that. For the past 3 winters, we've barely had any frost anyways, and only a few inches deep.

Not many rocks here to worry about, but did find a patch of underground mountains last fall, big enough to trip 3 or 4 of the shanks at once.

The grey wooded research farm at Breton started a trial with subsoiling a long time ago, I've spoken to the professors involved who thought it was going to do great things, but the experiment lost funding and was never completed.

I also thought it would work for ripping tree roots, as I can easily lose 50 feet of crop on every side of a tree. But the roots tend to twist the shanks and generally wreck things. I now use the track hoe ripper for that job, wow what a difference it made this year with no rain for months.

It's been a cheap experiment, didn't pay much for it, and a few dollars an acre in fuel.

Also tried some heavy gumbo pastures this June while it was so dry, this is soil that doesn't grow anything in pasture it gets so hard, but rip it up and it will grow 100 times more grass. Can't see any improvement so far.

I'd like to dig a test pit in some of these depression (ones that are at high enough elevation that they should drain subsurface by gravity, but dont) which hold water for ever, and see if there is a depth at which it would drain, or if they only recharge from ground water. Maybe extremely deep ripping these would help, but not sure how deep would be required. I have a lot of unanswered questions about the hydrogeology of this ground.

[bucket]

You could spread radish mid season ...early July if the spreader could follow sprayer tracks.

They would be in great shape by this time and working hard to sub soil.

I had limited success with radish in 2015 due to a dry spell but could see the benefit in areas they actually grew.