Making dirt

[Barndog56]

Awesome! Do you do this? I have my doubts that adding mycorrhizae to soil (in most cases) does anything as fungi tend to colonize very well where they can. I also suspect established fungi will out-compete introduced fungi pretty much every time. Where I think a difference can be made is if you have land that has had a fungi kill-off due to fungicide or tillage. ie - I think it would be wise to do what you described around apple trees that get regular fungicide treatments just to make sure the soil keeps it's beneficial mycorrhizae. I'm curious what your thoughts are on this. I believe fungi is very important to soil but think it's already everywhere (except where there is a reason it has died out).

I did this in the spring for my 1,000 square foot garden. It was nothing but sand 2 years ago when I put the garden in. I covered with a couple inches of composted horse manure, tilled and planted. Sweet corn grew about 5 feet tall with 1 ear per stalk. I heard about using soil from under vigorous plants that winter. This spring I used a couple wheelbarrows full, mixed it in with more composted horse manure, and spread a couple more inches. This year I planted without tilling. Sweet corn was 8 foot tall and had 2 or 3 ears per stalk. Asparagus, peppers, tomatos, onions, mellons, carrots, everything grew like gangbusters. When harvesting carrots this fall I could stick my hand down a foot deep into the soil, where it was hard as pavement 2 years ago.

My orchard had better soil to begin with, so have only added my compost in the tree rows. I avoid using fungicides on my trees to keep from harming the soil fungi.

Another trick I've heard about is removing leaves from vigorous plants and trees, the ones that have those dark, shiny, waxy looking leaves, and soaking them in a 5 gallon bucket of water. Then take that water and spray it on your trees, thus adding those beneficial microbes from the vigorous plants to your trees. Supposed to help them fight off insects and diseases.

 

[buckdeer1]

There is a sewer plant next town over and they liquefy sewage and have a truck that sprays it on farm fields.Don't know if I would stick my hand down in that

 

[NT179]

A couple of times we piled up 100 or so small square bales that were not fit for our horses. Over a period of time they rotted down and now we cut the small field where these piles are. Growth is incredible, deer always bed in or against these areas. It has never seen fertilizer and I would be afraid of fertilizering it. It taxes our old farm equipment as it is. Lol. I just need to find a million old bales to do the rest of the farm.

 

[NT179]

I think this is becoming a growing interest. I would add David Brandt to the list of people to watch on YouTube. I have watched many of those folks and have received quite an eye opening in a short time. I have read Gabe Browns book ( twice) and would highly recommend it to anyone doing any kind of planting.
To the original question: We use a lot of high biomass plants in the spring like rye, sorghum, oats and some legumes like peas and crimson clover to start building organic matter. In August it’s flattened ( I built a roller crimper) and rye, oats and more crimson clover is planted.
That’s our start in sandy soils.

I did not know Gabe had written a book so I ordered it as soon as you mentioned it. Only have read a little of it so far but it should be required reading for any farmer,foodplotter. Thanks for mentioning it

 

[TreeDaddy]

What is the title of the book?

bill

 

[tmeaton]

Dirt to Soil

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[tmeaton]

Northwoods Whitetails,

Would u mind telling us how u made your crimper? Maybe some pics?

Thanks.

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[Northwoods Whitetails]

The plans for the crimper came from the Rodale Institute. I contacted a local fab shop once I realized it was going to be to heavy to build in my own shop. It is 7 feet wide and weighs about 850 pounds with out water in the drum. This one is a 3 point unit. We also will have an option with the skid steer attachment to put on the front of a compact tractor and mount a seeder on the back.
We are now looking at a tow behind 5 foot model for the UTV/Atv

 

[Northwoods Whitetails]

 

[Northwoods Whitetails]

As far as Gabe’s book, I agree. It’s a must read for anyone that works in the soil.

 

[yoderjac]

View attachment 21987

Outstanding! It must not be inexpensive to fabricate. I'd love to have a tool like this!

I've contemplated trying something with my little Kasco 4' no-till drill. Since many seeds don't really need drilled and can just be dropped on the surface, this spring, I disconnected the seed tubes from the planting shoes and just let the tubes bounce around in front of the cultipacker on the unit when I planted buckwheat. I then made a second pass with a sprayer since I did not have a crimper. I'm considering adding an ATV type sprayer to the Kasco and spraying in the same pass.

I've shelved this idea when I began to have a problem with some weeds that are naturally resistant to gly like marestail. Now that I have to use herbicides that have a soil residual effect, the one pass solution is out.

Now I wonder....Seeder up front, ground driven like the Kasco dropping seeds, crimper next, presuming WR or similar cover crop, and cultipacker in the rear to press in the seed..... Just thinking out loud. I've seen lots of mulit-function units and none really seem to hit the target.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Northwoods Whitetails]

Jack

Some of the lands we manage won’t allow glyphosate, which is fine with me. This crimper now gives us an option to grow corn and beans if we want. There are a lot of diverse plantings we are going to try and this tool will be a big part of it. David Brandt mentions (in one of his seminars) that they can increase organic matter by .8 to 1 percentage point with a few 8 to 10 way blend cover crops they roll down.

 

[yoderjac]

Jack

Some of the lands we manage won’t allow glyphosate, which is fine with me. This crimper now gives us an option to grow corn and beans if we want. There are a lot of diverse plantings we are going to try and this tool will be a big part of it. David Brandt mentions (in one of his seminars) that they can increase organic matter by .8 to 1 percentage point with a few 8 to 10 way blend cover crops they roll down.

Yes, crimpers are fairly common with no-till farming but they are large and expensive. The cool thing you Semisane (http://www.habitat-talk.com/index.php?threads/an-atv-roller-crimper.9144/), and Erik (http://www.habitat-talk.com/index.php?threads/cover-crop-roller.6694/) have done is to bring this technique to the food plotter. That is why I asked about the cost.

I just had my first few lessons welding. If I finally talk myself into buying a welder, this will be one of my first projects. It will be a simple version like Semisane's.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Northwoods Whitetails]

The crimper we built was over $4200
Still need to paint it yet. Getting the blades right was the big issue. But this is a heavy duty unit, nothing cheap about this one. And it’s very smooth.
I would like to get the atv model to an affordable price range. It will have straight blades and some vibrations.
We still do the strip planting that Paul Knox preached. But we are down to one shallow pass a year with our tiller.

 

[yoderjac]

The crimper we built was over $4200
Still need to paint it yet. Getting the blades right was the big issue. But this is a heavy duty unit, nothing cheap about this one. And it’s very smooth.
I would like to get the atv model to an affordable price range. It will have straight blades and some vibrations.
We still do the strip planting that Paul Knox preached. But we are down to one shallow pass a year with our tiller.

I'm in a similar situation. My OM is getting better, but my clay will crust depending on conditions. I still run my tiller but lift it so I hat only the top inch is hit. I also need to do it to terminate PTT. A crimper would certainly help the PTT termination.

 

[Baker]

Wheat, red clover, radishes drilled into a crimped soy bean field. No fertilizer or any other amendments. Essentially organic. Been doing this a few years and the fields keep getting better and better.

 

[Catscratch]

Wheat, red clover, radishes drilled into a crimped soy bean field. No fertilizer or any other amendments. Essentially organic. Been doing this a few years and the fields keep getting better and better.

View attachment 22173

Do you crimp the wheat/clover in the spring, or just no-till the beans into it? I plant awnless wheat and the deer love to eat the heads...

Are you allowing your beans to make pods before you crimp it down (for winter grain), or are you terminating the beans "green" so that you can plant your wheat/clover/radishes? Beans would make an expensive cover crop, but if you aren't spraying them then conventional beans would be fairly cheap. I would be hard pressed to have a good bean crop and terminate it for wheat/clover/radish. Strips would be cool though.

 

[Baker]

Do you crimp the wheat/clover in the spring, or just no-till the beans into it? I plant awnless wheat and the deer love to eat the heads...

Are you allowing your beans to make pods before you crimp it down (for winter grain), or are you terminating the beans "green" so that you can plant your wheat/clover/radishes? Beans would make an expensive cover crop, but if you aren't spraying them then conventional beans would be fairly cheap. I would be hard pressed to have a good bean crop and terminate it for wheat/clover/radish. Strips would be cool though.

This particular field I was converting to red clover for one season before I go back to double cropping. So I will just mow it in the spring.

One of the big advantages of the south is how easy it is to double crop. I have planted regular soy beans in early May. By Sept. they have gone to seed and dead. I drill the fall crop into the brown beans and also get a slight flush of beans mashed in by the drill.

However I am now changing my summer crop to a combo of sunn hemp, beans, peas, sunflower, and buckwheat. Incredible production, impressive soil impact, and the deer literally live in the field once the hemp gets about 6' tall. It crimps beautifully in late Sept. or early October and then transition to rye, crimson, radishes and maybe a few turnips.

 

[Catscratch]

Do you crimp the wheat/clover in the spring, or just no-till the beans into it? I plant awnless wheat and the deer love to eat the heads...

Are you allowing your beans to make pods before you crimp it down (for winter grain), or are you terminating the beans "green" so that you can plant your wheat/clover/radishes? Beans would make an expensive cover crop, but if you aren't spraying them then conventional beans would be fairly cheap. I would be hard pressed to have a good bean crop and terminate it for wheat/clover/radish. Strips would be cool though.

This particular field I was converting to red clover for one season before I go back to double cropping. So I will just mow it in the spring.

One of the big advantages of the south is how easy it is to double crop. I have planted regular soy beans in early May. By Sept. they have gone to seed and dead. I drill the fall crop into the brown beans and also get a slight flush of beans mashed in by the drill.

However I am now changing my summer crop to a combo of sunn hemp, beans, peas, sunflower, and buckwheat. Incredible production, impressive soil impact, and the deer literally live in the field once the hemp gets about 6' tall. It crimps beautifully in late Sept. or early October and then transition to rye, crimson, radishes and maybe a few turnips.

Any weed problems such as; pigweed, maretail, Johnson Grass...?

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[buckdeer1]

Funny how things are different in different areas,I only no of 1 farmer around here thats not no till but don't know of any that crimp like they do in other parts of country