I got my last planting of winter rye in today on my land in Portage county WI. Within an hour of getting the Kubota in it's shed and other equipment used for the job put away, Mother Nature blessed the plots with a decent amount of rain, maybe an inch or more.
I was working five 14 feet wide 250 to 300 feet long fire lanes in a 30 year old red pine plantation. Three years ago during my every third row thinning, I had the first row of pines adjacent to every fire lane on both sides removed. I was amazed how much sun is now getting into the understory. I mowed the lanes once and sprayed them once with gly to kill the grass this year. The ground was all sod and I drove on these lanes. Typical Central Sands soil, a few inches of top soil and then sand and rock below.
The ground was disked after a recent rain and broke up okay. It still needed another pass by the disc today to break up the clumps today. I next normally run a spike tooth drag over the seed, but there was nowhere to turn around with this piece of equipment. After walking and broadcasting the lanes with a belly seeder I ran a 5 foot roller filled with water over the ground. This covered most of the seeds and gave all the rest a good soil contact.
The timing was great as the rains came just after the job was finished. With the 80 degree temps forecast for the next few days, I should get a good germination. I never tested the ph of the soil. It will be interesting to see the results.
To those of you old enough to remember "The A Team" . "I love it when a plan comes together".
I was working five 14 feet wide 250 to 300 feet long fire lanes in a 30 year old red pine plantation. Three years ago during my every third row thinning, I had the first row of pines adjacent to every fire lane on both sides removed. I was amazed how much sun is now getting into the understory. I mowed the lanes once and sprayed them once with gly to kill the grass this year. The ground was all sod and I drove on these lanes. Typical Central Sands soil, a few inches of top soil and then sand and rock below.
The ground was disked after a recent rain and broke up okay. It still needed another pass by the disc today to break up the clumps today. I next normally run a spike tooth drag over the seed, but there was nowhere to turn around with this piece of equipment. After walking and broadcasting the lanes with a belly seeder I ran a 5 foot roller filled with water over the ground. This covered most of the seeds and gave all the rest a good soil contact.
The timing was great as the rains came just after the job was finished. With the 80 degree temps forecast for the next few days, I should get a good germination. I never tested the ph of the soil. It will be interesting to see the results.
To those of you old enough to remember "The A Team" . "I love it when a plan comes together".
