There’s a whole list of benefits to leaving surface residue on top of the ground but soil erosion is one of the most important things you’re preventing……This is a plowed field across the road.



This is the water running through my place after the first good rain. If the water will carry this much soil away with it …….where do you suppose most of that 13-13-13 you put out is going?

Don’t get too hung up on the name TnM either and the way folks are gonna make it out to be black and white……I don’t care what its called….Mowing, Throwing, Growing, Sowing, Towing……… Plowing??........Or whether you do it with a bushhog, a disk, a pallet from behind the dumpster, or you just run over the vegetation with your tractor……The most important thing for you to understand are the principles and concepts of soil health.

“As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.”

Don’t think you need to start turning your disks into fish reefs either…..they’re just a tool. I still use mine to simulate my boffola herd when I need to set back succession in different areas. It works much better than a bushhog in this situation…….Understand the concepts and principles…..

Why are you disking Up a forest?

I’m not really “disking it up”…..The gangs on the disk are turned pretty straight. I’m using the disk to reset succession and to stimulate the seed bank. I’m not really set up to burn. This area probably wouldn’t burn well anyways. Also, this returns the vegetation (carbon) back to the soil and creates more fertile conditions than what burning would have by releasing much of it into the air. Its basically just simulating “mob grazing”……I do it to each areas about every two years although next year there will be some burning that gets incorporated into the mix as well. That’s basically what much of the understory looks like around my place at different levels of succession. That type of understory is a deer paradise.....

Thats funny right there

A few more pics of what I’m talking about………

Its been raining on and off here again today….Looks like its about to start in again and now the satellite is out……Nothing else much going on so I decided to go back and look through some of those old pics from the Testing in Progress threads. Its amazing how much things have changed over the years…….This was the last time that I planted my field “the right way” as some would call it…..As you can see I’ve been there/ done that when it comes to proper seed beds and such. That just wasn’t working out as advertised on my poor sandy soil and is what prompted a change in methods



Here’s a closer look at what the soil was like back then………This is what rarely gets mentioned when folks post up pretty pics of plots and say that “its just this easy!”……It is if you have great soil…..Most of us don’t have that luxury though and don’t get the same results using the same methods. Just a bunch of inefficient waste that still looks like half baked chit.



That’s a far cry from what it is today in comparison…….even if it is just an old festering weed patch…… ........Its amazing at what that organic matter will do for you in marginal soil, Heck, I imagine it would do a lot for you even in great soils.....

Cnc check your pm

Here’s another pic I dug up today I remember well. This is what really set the light bulb off to the importance of organic matter in my sandy soil. I had tried to plant a strip of Egyptian wheat around the perimeter of the field to serve as a screen. The seed bed had been well prepared and well fertilized. Despite feeling like I had done everything “the right way”…..my screen was still failing miserably and looked like crap. There was one small area of exception though. It was where an old tree had fallen and left a decomposing stump. That one small area was doing quite well….especially in comparison to everything else…..It was then that I realized the effect that the organic matter was having and that the only way I would ever grow true quality plots would be to have the whole field full of soil organic matter just the same....... So I started building it…….

Here’s a few more pics I ran across showing the benefits of keeping the soil surface covered……regulating the soil temps…..These two soil temps were taken in the same field not far apart during the middle of a hot summer day. The difference being that one spot was covered in surface residue and the other spot was bare soil.






Here’s a chart I made showing the temps of each spot throughout the day with readings taken every hour. It was made during the first week of August. How do suppose this might effect your young seedlings if the weather turns off hot and dry after planting? How do you suppose the big swing in daily temps from the bare soil area would affect the microorganisms in the soil? Which would the plants and microorganisms prefer? The one constant and stable or the one with big daily swings?

You’re a genius Mr soil professor. Pure genius.

Cool song........

You're such a prick

I have a pretty good feeling you’re a stick in the mud.

We're calling them dickweeds now. It's an obnoxious weed to have to deal with. I believe natural methods is still the way to get rid of them though

.....and just like that.....257 didn't wanna talk about food plottin no more..........

Nope been working this Am. Not playing with a lil forest patch. Just got back in. You Can call me a dickweed all you want to. Doesn’t change the fact you’re a weirdo.

Glad to see you’ve weasled your way back to having your own spray tinkle thread again.