Wind Gypsy,
Do you have the soil sample results? Hows your CEC? What kind of soil do you have?
MY brother in law experiments alot, and lets folks like cornell use his land for experiments too. He's done rotation changes, green cover stuff, and manure processing pond experiments from cornell.
They do multiple tests. plant tissue, pre-planting residue analysis, and of course soil samples. They have a no-till 1" deep soil sample test they do. They do not collect the samples, they have the soil lab come in and use a sampling machine to get precise depths, as well as precise zone depths. I use a coring tool, sure many of you have them. What I used to do is take a shovel, remove the top 3 inches, measure how much you took, then use the coring tool to get the 3-5 inch zone.
I clean the coring tool each pass, just make sure it's empty. Push it down level with the solid part f the tool. Remove the top piece from the core, then push it down to about 5 inches. I am removing the top piece. Which is like the shovel method.
Their recommendations is based on 6" of tillage.
What have you seen in changes since liming?
At home I got heavy clay, at camp I got sand. I do use lime and fertilizer up there. However, I use very light amounts. like 100 lbs /acre of 6-24-24 and about 500 lbs / ace or lime. I don't do this every year. My intentions is to build use plant residue with these inputs.
Keep it scientific. Recall what conditions you had that last soil sample. Time of year, water saturation, and sampling collection method. Even existing crop at the time.
If you want good production ever year, tillage may be needed due to compaction.
