Tell me more....

The basic concept in a nutshell is this, you are farming/feeding the microbes in the soil by creating healthy conditions for them to thrive. Creating healthy populations of microbial activity in the soil will provide readily available nutients to the plants/plots. Most soils are dead mostly due to traditional fertilization, soil disturbance, chemicals etc...

Sea90 sea minerals
The first thing I did was switch to the Sea90 minerals for my fertilization needs (costs $3 per acre). The basic concept behind the sea mineral is that our soil needs 48-52 minerals to be at optimal health. Our traditional practices generally only add 3-4 or those back into the soil, which makes plants/plots grow pretty and green, but they are not necessarily healthy. The sea minerals will help to replenish all of those minerals and more. These minerals will help to feed microbe populations which in turn make the nutrients available to the plants/plots. One of the reasons for so much disease and stress in plants/plots is the lack of these minerals. A side benefit of the sea minerals is that your plants/plots will be more drought and cold tolerant.
http://www.seaagri.com/fertilizer.htm


The raw milk
Two gallons per acre mixed with water (cost approx. $6 an acre, purchased from a local creamery). This will not only add some live culture to the soil, but will help feed the existing microbe population with high quality food as well. Another benefit to the raw milk is that it appears to help the soil become more porous and less compact allowing it to retain moisture and aireate itself better which both bring added benefits. Here is the study that originally got me interested in trying this method...
http://www.minnesotafarmguide.com/news/r...1cc4c03286.html

Worm Tea
Cost virtually nothing once you establish a worm bed and set up an aeration barrel or tank. If you choose to buy the castings then there will be minimal cost involved in buying the castings. This is the last thing that I am currently getting set up to add to my fertilization plan on a consistent basis. I have done a little experimenting with this but not a lot at this point. Basically you are taking the worm castings from a worm bed (can also be purchased) and brewing them with an aerator to make an active live tea that will add more life to your soil while feeding the plants/plot at the same time. There is a lot of info on this method of gardening online. Some organic farmers are starting to use this method as well with phenomenal results. I got really interested in experimenting with this after reading an article in Acres USA on how one farmer totally rehabilitated his soil with this method along with adding fish emulsion to his brew. According to the article Bruce Davidson bought a 380 acre farm that had been used for diary cattle and sheep for years. His soil ph was at 4.6 when he bought the farm and soil tests showed that he needed to add 2000 lbs of 60% dolomite & 40% lime along with the other recommendations on fertilization to get on track. He couldn't afford these recommendations, so he began to think outside the box and look for less expensive alternatives. He and his wife had been in the flower business and completely changed the quality of their flowers and fertilization costs after reading a book called Worms Downunder by Alan Windust. Understanding that worm castings are one of the best fertilizers in the world, he began to experiment with using worm juice on his pastures. After some initial testing he began spraying his pastures with approximately 1 gallon of worm juice to 10 gallons of water per acre with a boomless sprayer that formed larger droplets so as to not destroy the microbiology of the mix. His results were nothing short of miraculous. His pastures came to life not to mention that the cattle preferred to stay in his initial test area verses the other pastures. Soil tests the following year showed that his ph had improved to 6.5, the calcium had increased by 456lbs per acre, and magnesium by 81 lbs per acre, all this combined at the local prices saved him $130 dollars per acre which equated to roughly $49,000. He has since learned that adding fish emulsion helps to raise the BRIX levels even more than the worm juice mix alone. He started out with a BRIX level of 4 but has been able to raise the BRIX to between 15-20 depending on the variety being tested.
http://farmingsecrets.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/FS-Article-Lessons-From-The-Lucky-Country.pdf

Throw & Mow/No-till Principles.
Any one of these methods alone will help improve the quality of your soil, but if you also implement the no-till or throw & mow principles of not disturbing the soil any more than necessary & the utilization of cover crops that are taught by Ray Archeletta of the NRCS, you will get the best of both worlds and see very quick results. It doesn't have to be a long term approach. Remember the results from the last example happened in a little over a year. After you watch the video link below you might be thinking those guys are farmers with all of the no-till equipment, that won't work for me on a smaller scale when it comes to food plotting, because I don't have all that equipment. But the principles that CNC has been promoting are the same. It's just the way you go about using them that are different. As CNC has explained with the Throw & Mow, you simply put the seed out first and then mow everything down on top of the seed. This works great when planting on a smaller scale like food plots. The farmer has to be able to control costs so he has to be more precise on seeding rates etc. so that method doesn't work for them. So when it comes to their cash crops they use no-till planters to control those things, and they plant after the cover crop has been laid down verse before with the throw & mow. But the principles and the results when it comes to soil health improvement, moisture retention, erosion control, reduction of fertilizer costs, natural weed control etc. are the same.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWXCLVCJWTU


Testing the BRIX
This is an inexpensive way to easily and accurately test the quality of any fruit, vegetable, or forage crop. And in my opinion tells you more about the finished product than soil and PH tests, because it shows you the actual quality of (the end result) the plant/plot that you are growing. Here is a link that will explain the benefits of testing the BRIX.
http://bionutrient.org/bionutrient-rich-food/brix

Be sure and check out all the links for more info, I think you will finding them interesting. It may sound complicated but it's actually really as simple as mix and spray once you understand the concepts and methods.

I have been experimenting with these methods for the last three years because my goal with my farm is to establish low cost high quality pastures along with perennial peanut hay fields for the purpose of raising high quality grass fed organic beef. So in case you were wondering I haven't been doing this just to have pretty plots.

Just be prepared because people will laugh and make fun of you when using these methods. Just like the farmers in the link above who's livelihood depended on it, most folks are reluctant to change. But as you saw from the link, all of those guys found substantial benefits to the no-till cover crop methods once they were willing to try something different. You can also see similar results when studying each of the other methods, people were hesitant, but were excited about the results when the were willing to think outside the box and try something new. I know of another guy who is a hay farmer who won the competition for this highest quality hay for several years in a row who also uses some of these non traditional methods. So the bottom line is that these methods and principles are working on a larger scale for farmers whose livelihood depend on it, and they will also work for you...But be prepared for the naysayers who have always pretty much done the same thing...

I hope this helps

I assume you would spray or mow before the weeds seed out. To keep next years weeds from growing from this years seed??? If you do this for several years shouldnt it greatly reduce your weeds? I know you will always have some weeds that are transferred via wind or animal poop.

It's all about adding organic matter back to the soil and not using chemicals to poison the microbes. Do you have a link to the worm tea stuff you are using? Of course there isn't a distributor for the sea minerals anywhere near me.....

I will try and find a how to link when I get back to office. I have my own worm bed, so other than the cost of the building materials and the worms to stock it, there is little to no costs to using the worm tea. You build the bed in such a way that you can harvest castings through the bottom of the worm bed without disturbing the worms.

Interesting.

Do your clovers get choked out when the grasses and weeds spring up over summer and you just have to treat all clover as an annual?

What would ideal seed rate be for rye,oats,crimson clover,and some turnips for this method?

I've found that the clovers go dormant at some point anyways even in the wet areas. I'm sure there will be some exception but for the most part you're not going to be growing lush clover plots down here in the south during late July...August....during the heat of summer. That's why it doesn't bother me to let other stuff take over as the summer goes on. I need to produce the biomass and if I sprayed it all out trying to grow clover only, then I'd likely end up with a pretty bare, crunchy field toward summer's end.

I have a high deer density so I like to sow my cereals at 100 lbs/ac. You could go as high as 125-150 if you wanted to. Some other folks go with 75 lbs. Tailor it to your situation. Mix in 10 lbs of crimson clover.... 1-2 lbs of turnips.

Westflgator, this is some great info and i really appreciate you taking the time to post it. Luckily, a guy just up the road from me carries the sea minerals. A local dairy just closed its doors, so i'll have to figure out where to get the milk from, as well as the worm tea. I'll start me a worm bed, i guess. What type of worms are you using, red?

Yes, red wigglers. I would recommend trying it on a test plot or two. Take soil samples ahead of time that you can compare after you implement some of these methods. Then compare your Brix on the traditional plots to the test plots as well...

So i take it that you bought a Brix meter, or do you send your samples off? Also, where are you getting raw non-pasterized milk? Dairies can't sell it.

I asked because I have never been able to bring clover back for a second season. Ive mowed, and fertilized, etc. Then it goes dormant summer then never returned in the fall.

I bought a refractometer off of Amazon to test BRIX. I buy the milk from a creamery. Dairies can sell it but not for human consumption.

CNC,
Tell us about spring turnips. When did you plant? How long until the mature? Any deer browsing? Or solely for biomass production?

westflgator, how much of the minerals do you apply per acre? On his website I don't see a recommendation for application.

Actually, I just found on the website where it says 50lbs/acre, which is $50/acre, where did you get the $3/acre figure?

That is if it's put out as a granular broadcast at 50lbs per acre. ($27-30 per bag is what I'm getting it for), but most apply it as a foliar spray, and 1 bag will do 10 acres at a rate of 5lbs per acre to 20 gallons of water. Some only use 4lbs which would do 12 acres per bag. The foliar application goes much further with quicker results, but won't last quite as long as the granular. Some people put out the granular the first couple years along with a foliar application, and then foliar only once the minerals have been added back to the soil.

When are these applications made spring or fall?