Diversity

[SD51555]

I thought I better say that the picture above is from traditional tillage not TNM. The way I worded it in this post was a little misleading.

ST ... My biggest issue is always weed & grass competition. I have 2 different 3 acre plots with RR soy beans and this is the 3rd year for these. I sprayed gly twice last year and and have already sprayed twice this year, still have weeds & grasses starting.

With the seed selection you have, how do you deal with the weeds & grasses?

Put grass and weeds in your plot. The soil is telling u you’re outta balance, and it’ll keep sending weeds until you can’t kill them, and that usually ends up being some awful and aggressive stuff.

I helped a client put in a no-spray no-fertilizer plot this year. We are testing fertility performance and weed suppression with overwhelming diversity. He’s already got marestail, thistle, and all the other usual suspects that glyphosate blessed us with. So far, it’s going exceptionally well, and this plot has none of those weeds.

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[Tree Spud]

Put grass and weeds in your plot. The soil is telling u you’re outta balance, and it’ll keep sending weeds until you can’t kill them, and that usually ends up being some awful and aggressive stuff.

I helped a client put in a no-spray no-fertilizer plot this year. We are testing fertility performance and weed suppression with overwhelming diversity. He’s already got marestail, thistle, and all the other usual suspects that glyphosate blessed us with. So far, it’s going exceptionally well, and this plot has none of those weeds.

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Weeds & cold season grasses start to emerge as soon as top soil warms, usually several weeks both you can plant. Still not clear how over whelming diversity suppress' early emergent weed & grass growth?

 

[yoderjac]

Weeds & cold season grasses start to emerge as soon as top soil warms, usually several weeks both you can plant. Still not clear how over whelming diversity suppress' early emergent weed & grass growth?

I think what he is saying is that if you have a good mix of complementary crops and good nutrient cycling with your soil, weeds are less likely. It does not eliminate them, but it does not encourage them. A good example is a perennial clover plot. As it ages, the N fixed into the soil encourages grasses to invade. The soil has lots of what they want and they thrive. Mix the same clover with the right balance of chicory which is an N consumer, and the chicory uses much of the N the clover produces leaving less to encourage grasses.

Bottom line is that nature abhors a monoculture. The more we mimic nature and the less we bend it, the more success we have. The more we fight it using deep tillage and monocultures, the more inputs it requires (fertilizer and such) and the harder it is to achieve our goals.

(Not sure how he made that post without getting the word "gypsum" into it )

Thanks,

Jack

 

[SD51555]

I think what he is saying is that if you have a good mix of complementary crops and good nutrient cycling with your soil, weeds are less likely. It does not eliminate them, but it does not encourage them. A good example is a perennial clover plot. As it ages, the N fixed into the soil encourages grasses to invade. The soil has lots of what they want and they thrive. Mix the same clover with the right balance of chicory which is an N consumer, and the chicory uses much of the N the clover produces leaving less to encourage grasses.

Bottom line is that nature abhors a monoculture. The more we mimic nature and the less we bend it, the more success we have. The more we fight it using deep tillage and monocultures, the more inputs it requires (fertilizer and such) and the harder it is to achieve our goals.

(Not sure how he made that post without getting the word "gypsum" into it )

Thanks,

Jack

I didn't want to overwhelm, but given that you asked. Gypsum will make your clover stronger. In a low sulfate environment, grasses will outcompete legumes. Thank the boys at Mississippi State for teaching this one:

http://extension.msstate.edu/public...-plant-nutrients-calcium-magnesium-and-sulfur


If you get out there early, you can thwart your grasses with winter rye. If you're blessed with soils to wet for rye to survive in spring, you can come over the top with two-row barley and catch up fairly quickly and fill the void before those grasses take hold.

There are plenty of guys that have found this out before me. They dump winter rye into their clover each fall and stick with a simple mowing regimen to keep weeds at bay. The rye sucks up everything that would have fed encroaching wild grasses.

 

[yoderjac]

I didn't want to overwhelm, but given that you asked. Gypsum will make your clover stronger. In a low sulfate environment, grasses will outcompete legumes. Thank the boys at Mississippi State for teaching this one:

http://extension.msstate.edu/public...-plant-nutrients-calcium-magnesium-and-sulfur
View attachment 25244

If you get out there early, you can thwart your grasses with winter rye. If you're blessed with soils to wet for rye to survive in spring, you can come over the top with two-row barley and catch up fairly quickly and fill the void before those grasses take hold.

There are plenty of guys that have found this out before me. They dump winter rye into their clover each fall and stick with a simple mowing regimen to keep weeds at bay. The rye sucks up everything that would have fed encroaching wild grasses.

Yep...I've been drilling into established clover with a no-till drill for quite a while now. I either suppress it with gly if it is weedy or mow it flat. I like drilling WR and GHR into it. I've posted these pics before but here they are again for new folks:

The WR & GHR have enough time to germinate and get above the clover before it bounces back from the root system.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[S.T.Fanatic]

Weeds & cold season grasses start to emerge as soon as top soil warms, usually several weeks both you can plant. Still not clear how over whelming diversity suppress' early emergent weed & grass growth?

It's all quite situational but.... lets say you want to plant your plot on May 25 - June 5. By this time as you mentioned weeds and cold season grasses will be up and growing. Till them under and plant. It is almost as simple as that. The soil by that time of year is much warmer than when farmers traditionally plant. The weeds that were growing were terminated by the tillage pass and the seeds that you just planted into a "warm" seedbed will emerge and grow at an accelerated rate compared to if you were to plant the same thing in the same field 3-4 weeks earlier when the soil temp was much cooler.

Fall cover crops planted into existing warm season annuals will make your plot even more attractive and help suppress many of the problematic weed species for the following spring planting. If you are only planting fall annuals for attraction and/or and over winter food source just make sure that there is a cereal grain element to the mix. It will suppress weeds all summer long until the following fall planting season.

You will have weeds in your plot but the deer will not care and in some cases depending what you plant the deer will use it even more because of the security that the vertical growing weeds will provide.

As plotters we need to get the production ag mentality out of our heads. Yield is over rated. As Jack has said over and over the only plants that mater are those that end up in the deers stomach. Need more food, plant more acres. Dont have enough acres, put out feed. Your food plots could even be worthless for hunting and you should concentrate you time and money elsewhere.

 

[S.T.Fanatic]

I am going to be planting PTT/GHR and rolling this down within the next few weeks sometime. Weeds weren’t a problem all spring and summer and won’t be this fall either.


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[SD51555]

As plotters we need to get the production ag mentality out of our heads.

Spot on dawg. We have two big advantages over farming. We don't have to harvest this stuff, and we don't have to make money with it, so there is no point in using the same limited and expensive set of tools farmers are confined to.

On spring weeds...

My plots hold water longer than the average plot. I can't keep winter cereals alive in that water, however, Ladino clover will live and thrive in it. This year, I tried 2-row barley when there was still about a half inch of water in puddles all over the plot. The barley actually grew better where it sat in shallow water for a few more days. I was a chicken and didn't put down a full rate, but in hindsight, I wish I had. I overseeded a bunch of other annual grasses 3 weeks later, and by then it was too late. The heat hit my clover, it took off like mad, and choked out anything new at that point (except the barley).

There are still some grasses that poked through late, and that’s why I wished I had dropped about 3 bu/ac of barley on it mid May.

 

[Tree Spud]

It's all quite situational but.... lets say you want to plant your plot on May 25 - June 5. By this time as you mentioned weeds and cold season grasses will be up and growing. Till them under and plant. It is almost as simple as that. The soil by that time of year is much warmer than when farmers traditionally plant. The weeds that were growing were terminated by the tillage pass and the seeds that you just planted into a "warm" seedbed will emerge and grow at an accelerated rate compared to if you were to plant the same thing in the same field 3-4 weeks earlier when the soil temp was much cooler.

Fall cover crops planted into existing warm season annuals will make your plot even more attractive and help suppress many of the problematic weed species for the following spring planting. If you are only planting fall annuals for attraction and/or and over winter food source just make sure that there is a cereal grain element to the mix. It will suppress weeds all summer long until the following fall planting season.

You will have weeds in your plot but the deer will not care and in some cases depending what you plant the deer will use it even more because of the security that the vertical growing weeds will provide.

As plotters we need to get the production ag mentality out of our heads. Yield is over rated. As Jack has said over and over the only plants that mater are those that end up in the deers stomach. Need more food, plant more acres. Dont have enough acres, put out feed. Your food plots could even be worthless for hunting and you should concentrate you time and money elsewhere.

Spot on dawg. We have two big advantages over farming. We don't have to harvest this stuff, and we don't have to make money with it, so there is no point in using the same limited and expensive set of tools farmers are confined to.

On spring weeds...

My plots hold water longer than the average plot. I can't keep winter cereals alive in that water, however, Ladino clover will live and thrive in it. This year, I tried 2-row barley when there was still about a half inch of water in puddles all over the plot. The barley actually grew better where it sat in shallow water for a few more days. I was a chicken and didn't put down a full rate, but in hindsight, I wish I had. I overseeded a bunch of other annual grasses 3 weeks later, and by then it was too late. The heat hit my clover, it took off like mad, and choked out anything new at that point (except the barley).

There are still some grasses that poked through late, and that’s why I wished I had dropped about 3 bu/ac of barley on it mid May.

I am no purist, not trying to get pics of my foodplots on the cover of BOB monthly magazine, not trying to be a production ag farmer. I am focusing on soil health, biomass addition, and food source. Here is what I am doing:

• In early to mid May I disk the surface to over turn the weeds & grasses. If there is regrowth be planting I will spray with gly.
• Last 3 years I planted beans with 15% milo sorhgum, last year was just soy beans, then this year I am trying forage soy beans. Last 2 years I am planting with a Van Brundt seed drill. Two years prior fields were leased out to a local farmer who planted corn then in the fall planted cover crops of either WR or wheat.
• I will monitor and spray with gly if weed/grass emerge. I have the marestail, thistle, etc. under control (not eliminated) but still have weeds & grasses.
• Will fertilize with Urea after beans emerge.
• In late July I overseed with red clover, PTT, & GHR.
• In early Sept I overseed with WR.

Next year my goal is to rotate from beans. My concern is that if I can't plan something that I can overspray with Gly, I am opening up to recreating the weed/grass seed bank.

 

[S.T.Fanatic]

I am by no means a purist either. I have and still do plant some RR crops as well as use it for a complete burn down before doing a TNM brassica plot into a weedy clover chicory plot.

Looks to me like you are doing things right. I would only say to skip adding any urea after your beans emerge because you are only going to give the weeds a jump start.

 

[Tree Spud]

I am by no means a purist either. I have and still do plant some RR crops as well as use it for a complete burn down before doing a TNM brassica plot into a weedy clover chicory plot.

Looks to me like you are doing things right. I would only say to skip adding any urea after your beans emerge because you are only going to give the weeds a jump start.

Fall cover crops planted into existing warm season annuals will make your plot even more attractive and help suppress many of the problematic weed species for the following spring planting. If you are only planting fall annuals for attraction and/or and over winter food source just make sure that there is a cereal grain element to the mix. It will suppress weeds all summer long until the following fall planting season.

ST ... did you suggest in your earlier post to over seed cover crops? Would this be late summer/early fall?

 

[S.T.Fanatic]

ST ... did you suggest in your earlier post to over seed cover crops? Would this be late summer/early fall?

Correct. you want something green growing on that ground as many weeks out of the year as possible.

 

[Tree Spud]

I am by no means a purist either. I have and still do plant some RR crops as well as use it for a complete burn down before doing a TNM brassica plot into a weedy clover chicory plot.

Looks to me like you are doing things right. I would only say to skip adding any urea after your beans emerge because you are only going to give the weeds a jump start.

I had a thought to spread my fertilizer and then disk the grass & weeds under. I could then drill my beans with the fertilizer already available.

What are your thoughts on this approach?

 

[S.T.Fanatic]

I don't know why that wouldn't work. Just keep the N component of your NPK low.

 

[Boll Weevil]

This is what it looked like the other day.

Observations: Very little observed browse pressure on any of the crops and while the sorghum was the fastest starter, the peas and sunflowers absolutely came on like gangbusters. Really pleased with how it's turned out and will hopefully serve as a "stockpiled" food source for this winter. If you look closely there's native stuff in there like ragweed that the deer nibble on too so for folks worried about a pristine stand of whatever given crop(s), don't sweat it. The critters are just as happy as they can be.

 

[S.T.Fanatic]

Looks great!!!!

 

[SD51555]

 

[S.T.Fanatic]

SD51555, I don't think the forum members care about some old, old, wooden ship.

 

[Boll Weevil]

The sunflowers are now over 6 ft tall and the cowpeas are using them as a trellis. Browse pressure has increased on the peas.

 

[S.T.Fanatic]

Milo starting to come on strong!

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