That makes me smile!

Its prolly due to all the rain...It makes me smile...

Or it could be to planting it the right way???

Turkeymaster��.To answer your question more specifically�..From the looks of you plots I think you�ll be fine. They look like they are pretty productive so even if what you just planted gets wiped out then you should still likely grow a crop of weeds in behind it. If you think the thatch is going to be too thin though then throw out your seed�.take about half the angle out of your disks�..and then run it over the top of everything without mowing. Just scratch the surface enough to hide your seeds form the birds. If it looks like its going to rain right behind your planting then you could probably just broadcast your seed and pull a drag over it.

Turkeymaster, as cnc has already said, plant multiple plantings. I like sunn hemp, buckwheat and pea's. Milo is a great addition that has some attraction as well.The deer seldom eat all the buckwheat and grasses and weeds will fill in where they've eaten the pea's down. With the right conditioned soil, you can still grow great fall plots without a lot of thatch, you just need more rain.

I figured yours and riverwoods plots would fail, because in all honesty, you want them to fail. I read your posts, and i'm not sure why you two are even on this thread. It was supposed to be set up for people interested in this method, which clearly ya'll are not.

Mine didn't fail cause I couldn't bring myself to do it.

Discussion of no till and cover crops by the doc.

im all for no till. It's a good practice.

this worries me

There are more and more folks showing interest in this method now and lots of them beginning to do their own trials. I just wanted to throw this out there as a reminder even though I know its being redundant�..

It will take some time to get your fields turned around when you begin to convert to this method from traditional tillage methods. A lot of the success of germinating seeds this way depends on the condition of the soil surface as well as the moisture being held in that topsoil once you�ve built up several inches worth. It will take putting down a couple good crops of thatch and giving it time to decompose before this happens. For folks who want to convert to throw and mow I would not even bother trying to plant a summer crop the first year. I would instead spend the money addressing fertility needs and growing biomass to cover the soil surface, get your OM on the rise, etc�.This is step 1. I�m not saying this to be a arse so you guys don�t take this the wrong way but step 1 is not to try and grow beans, peas, sunflowers, or whatever. I know everyone like to do that in the summer but you have to start seeing this method not just as a planting method but as a long term process of changing the soil�.it�s efficiency�and its productivity�

Getting your topsoil to look like the below pic is the most important thing to do in the beginning. Summer grasses are your best friends right now. Just think about it as if you are cutting hay this summer off of your field but instead of bailing it and hauling it away�.your instead feeding it to your soil. You�ve got to grow the hay though to make it happen.

Good video Joe......How did he say he was planting his wheat and clover? Did he say he was broadcasting it into standing beans?

That's what I heard...

How did he say he was planting soybeans??

will 1 bag of the 0-0-60 be enough for 1/2 acre plots?

To know exactly how much you need we would have to know your CEC value and your base saturation rates......but adding 1 bag will put you in a lot better place than you are now. Is this really sandy soil?

Grant drills everything no-till. Know him well and have been to his place several times. Never heard him speak of the ole mow & throw method. He convinced me to start no-till drilling

.

Really? Really? You think that I "willed my mow & throw plots not to succeed" just so I could burn more fuel & spend more time planting? You silly . I plant, fertilize, and spray every which way you can imagine, just to see what is most efficient in my operation. I'm running side by side test to see how each method works. I'll figure out photo bucket one day or you can come see for yourself.

3 week old broadcast corn



1 month old sunflowers

10 day old grain sorghum