Compacted with not till

Ncwoodsman

A good 3 year old buck
Hey all I had a question and wanted to get some thoughts on it. I have a couple of our food plots that we haven't turned the ground in around 5 years and have done all no till with a no till drill, which have produced some amazing plots but I have noticed a couple of the fields are getting pretty compacted to the point I believe it's effecting the plots. The question is should I disc the field or possibly add some plants the have a deeper tapp root ? Thanks
 
Personally I'd have a tap-root plant in all of my plantings, and I'd be looking for worms. Good healthy soil with worms and microbes will trend towards loose soil that can handle being driven over once in a while.
 
Hey all I had a question and wanted to get some thoughts on it. I have a couple of our food plots that we haven't turned the ground in around 5 years and have done all no till with a no till drill, which have produced some amazing plots but I have noticed a couple of the fields are getting pretty compacted to the point I believe it's effecting the plots. The question is should I disc the field or possibly add some plants the have a deeper tapp root ? Thanks

How often do you spray? And what have u been planting?


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I've been planting winter and crimson clover mix or something of that variety for around the last 5 years usually let it go fallow till late summer then Bush hog, spray once sometimes twice with gly a couple weeks apart and then drill
 
I've been planting winter and crimson clover mix or something of that variety for around the last 5 years usually let it go fallow till late summer then Bush hog, spray once sometimes twice with gly a couple weeks apart and then drill
I don't have any experience with crimson clover, but I'm guessing by the time late summer rolls around crimson is probably about done and dried off too?

If that's the case, try skipping the spraying for a year or two, and just plant right into that standing dead crop, then come behind it and just press it flat. Don't even mow it. If you're spraying even once, and especially twice, you're looking at a minimum of 14 days or weeks longer of nothing growing. When all is dead like that, you lose all of your soil's glomalin. Glomalin is what holds your soil pores open, it's the plaster holding up the ceilings in the tunnels.

I'm not anti-spraying, but take a good hard look before you do. If you don't see a massive flush of weeds coming, skip it, and then delay it as long as possible.

And don't forget the chicory. The longer you can go without losing your glomalin, you'll get ever more and more aeration from worms and other soil critters that bore holes and channels. The disc will only give you the illusion of breaking compaction. Soon after, you'll be even more compacted, but now down a few inches.

Here's a 60 second read on glomalin with more big words.

 
The other consideration is when to do this. I'd say as soon as you see all your vegetation is dead, or better yet, in the process of drying off and being done, that's when you go. Having nothing growing at all because life cycles have completed is equally as bad for glomalin as spraying. You have to keep that green going year round. I've just recently discovered this myself, and I used my eyes to decide when it was throw and roll time.

This was my plot on July 10th. Nice and lush and alive. Too soon.

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This was July 20th. Still too soon, but look at that 54" balansa!

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August 4th. All is toast except for the chicory. That is my green bridge. Go time. Here you can also see my high end broadcast spreader bucket.

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That plot is beautiful SD!

I'm going to guess the bucket has a loud exhaust with the ear muffs and hard hat needed to run it?
 
That plot is beautiful SD!

I'm going to guess the bucket has a loud exhaust with the ear muffs and hard hat needed to run it?

The hard hat was for the deer flies. The ear muffs were for pulling that packer around. I’ve got one busted toothy sprocket, so it likes to clang loudly while I’m going.


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