By all means carry on.

I haven't gotten a soil test done yet this spring. I'll probably send one in sometimes in the next 2-3 weeks. I'm curious to see how well my K is still holding and if my pH has come on up into the 6's.

What's the status of your plot now? Has it went to seed and started drying down yet?

What did you plant to make your ph increase?

All of my cereal rye and clovers have went to seed, the rye is about 4' tall, but has not started drying out yet. With all this rain, its going to cause some compaction issues, if people get on the plots too quick. I may spray mine next week and let it be drying down some. Killed all the turkeys, i'm going to kill on my land for the year, so it won't mess me up.

I had lime spread at this time last year. There is still lime easily found in the topsoil today. The year I ceased tillage, my soil pH was down to 5.1…The first year I planted this field as a foodplot, which was a few years prior to that….it had sit fallow in weeds and grass for a number of years and the pH was 6.8. After several years of heavy tillage I had burnt up all of the organic matter in my soil. Therefore its nutrient holding capacity was severely decreased since all I had to fall back on without organic matter was mostly sand (very little clay content). There was nothing left to hold onto the 1200 lbs/ac of Ca that the field was originally holding. The Ca dropped from 1200 lbs/ac down to 300 lbs/ac…..so there was nothing to buffer the pH anymore.

I didn’t spread any lime the first year I went throw and mow. I grew mostly cereal rye and crabgrass which both do well in low pH conditions. Once I had a decent layer of OM back on the surface then I brought in the lime truck last year to replace all of that Ca that I had lost. Things looked a lot better on the fall test last year after the lime had a few months to work. I don’t recall the exact lbs/ac but I believe it was back up to around 1,000 lbs/ac of Ca and the pH was up to 5.8….Like I was saying though, there is still lime easily found in the topsoil that hasn’t been broken down yet so I’m expecting that the pH is still going to rise more than what the last test showed.

The really exciting thing now though is that I have actually built my organic matter up to a higher % than what I was working with even in the very beginning. I have a higher CEC value now than when the field was just sitting fallow before I owned it. My CEC was originally 4.1 then it fell to a low of 2.0….and now its up to 5.9… That means I can hold/deliver more nutrients and water…….and I’m still building more OM every year. I’ve brought my OM% up from less than 1%….to 3.4%. I would think that over time the trend upward on the graph won’t be as steep and it will flatten out.

I talked with CNC a year or so ago and got some advice on his methods. Convincing my dad that a disc wasnt necessary has been hard. The compromise was that a few of my fields were zero discing. Some of the fields were planted traditionally with discing the heck out of them. Some were kind of a hybrid between the two. The finished product from all 3 have been very similar. If anything we had better luck establishing the throw and mow at first. We planted and got very little rain if any for the first several weeks. The throw and mow held its own moisture better and got a head start.

Again we saw really no difference in the final product. Deer and turkeys keep them all mowed down regardless of how it was planted. You can tell a difference walking through them though. The traditional fields are much harder and uneven. The surface also dries out much quicker.

After saying all of that, i have no plans of discing again. Just not worth the extra time and effort for a field for a deer or turkey to eat of. Especially if they are going to feed in the field regardless of how i plant it. If i was a farmer i am sure my planting method would be a good bit different from what i would use to plant a food plot.

When are you gonna do your soil test?

That’s awesome man!……The hardest part is behind you now. A year from now I think you’ll really be smiling as your OM builds and conditions continue to improve. Keep us updated.

Yep. i think i may even have him convinced to cut it down to a hybrid between the two styles for his half while i do pure throw n mow on my half. Will be planting buckwheat and sunn hemp this year for the first time in our 2 big fields. Should work well.

I may wait about spraying some of mine, because i'm planting sunflowers and milo for dove and i don't want to plant it to quick, so i may let mine die on its own.