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The earthworm thread

SD51555

SD51555

5 year old buck +
I have worms.

I place a high value on making sure I don't do anything to upset my earthworms if I don't absolutely have to (last year I had to). With all the pressure on the price and availability of products needed to make a plant grow, I thought it'd be a good idea to share a factoid article on the power of earthworms and some management considerations if you are looking to harness the power of the biological fertility cycle.

These guys can put up $200,000 per acre in non-toxic non-acidifying nutrients per year. Because of this, I make darn sure these guys stay in business.

worldagriculturesolutions.com

EARTHWORM PRIMER

“Biological Agriculture” relies on earthworms and other soil critters to do what plows and synthetic chemicals do in conventional agronomic systems. Follow the advice below to encourag…
worldagriculturesolutions.com worldagriculturesolutions.com
 
Farmer who leases our fields gave me a tour of his other fields and an education on worms a year or two ago. He wanted to show me where he wanted to get our soil and what healthy soil looks like. We spent a good bit of time out of the truck and in the field as he showed me worm holes and mounds where they were basically tilling the soil as they do their thing. I have seen farmers less proud of their their livestock than he was of his worms, LOL!
 
SD51555 said:
I have worms.

I place a high value on making sure I don't do anything to upset my earthworms if I don't absolutely have to (last year I had to). With all the pressure on the price and availability of products needed to make a plant grow, I thought it'd be a good idea to share a factoid article on the power of earthworms and some management considerations if you are looking to harness the power of the biological fertility cycle.

These guys can put up $200,000 per acre in non-toxic non-acidifying nutrients per year. Because of this, I make darn sure these guys stay in business.

worldagriculturesolutions.com

EARTHWORM PRIMER

“Biological Agriculture” relies on earthworms and other soil critters to do what plows and synthetic chemicals do in conventional agronomic systems. Follow the advice below to encourag…
worldagriculturesolutions.com worldagriculturesolutions.com
Click to expand...


SD,
this is off subject a some, but I had a soil question that I wanted to ask you. I would like to rid my plots of canadian thistle, I have been fighting them with mowing them down, several times a year, and I have been trying to get the soil amended to healthy. I have planted winter rye, clover, turnips, and radish in this plot for several years. The soil looks great. If, and when I have broke the soil, it was just lightly to scratch the surface. I have just a small area, about 30x50 feet that every year they keep coming back. I know you preach healthy soils to fix certain weeds. Can you preach to me what I should do different to make the soil less likeable for canadian thistle?

The plot I have the most problem with is my apple tree plot. I have 30 apple trees growing in this 3/4 acre plot. I have been planting in between the trees since I started the plot. My goal is to eventually let it go with a decent clover plot, but I like to toss winter rye in it in the fall to use up some of the built up nitrogen so I dont end up with a thick stand of grasses in it. Other then chemicals, do you have any suggestions? Or any idea on how many years of mowing them back, and hoeing them out it will take ti kill them?

I do have a lot of earth worms in this plot. 8 years ago, it was solid woods, and very acidic soil, hardly any worms.
 
4wanderingeyes said:
SD,
this is off subject a some, but I had a soil question that I wanted to ask you. I would like to rid my plots of canadian thistle, I have been fighting them with mowing them down, several times a year, and I have been trying to get the soil amended to healthy. I have planted winter rye, clover, turnips, and radish in this plot for several years. The soil looks great. If, and when I have broke the soil, it was just lightly to scratch the surface. I have just a small area, about 30x50 feet that every year they keep coming back. I know you preach healthy soils to fix certain weeds. Can you preach to me what I should do different to make the soil less likeable for canadian thistle?

The plot I have the most problem with is my apple tree plot. I have 30 apple trees growing in this 3/4 acre plot. I have been planting in between the trees since I started the plot. My goal is to eventually let it go with a decent clover plot, but I like to toss winter rye in it in the fall to use up some of the built up nitrogen so I dont end up with a thick stand of grasses in it. Other then chemicals, do you have any suggestions? Or any idea on how many years of mowing them back, and hoeing them out it will take ti kill them?

I do have a lot of earth worms in this plot. 8 years ago, it was solid woods, and very acidic soil, hardly any worms.
Click to expand...
Let them grow and don't harm them in any way, even if they get 7 feet tall. Thistles are auto-toxic, so they won't come back once they've completed their lifecycle. But they need to complete their lifecycle, and they need to not get called back again (tillage, chemical burndown, single species planting, fallow period, or conditions simply so bad nothing else will grow). I have a hunch it's towards the end of the thistle's life cycle that some sort of organic acid is emitted by the mature thistle that acts as an inhibitor to the next thistle crop.

If you've already got rye and clover coming, just add some forage collards (and hairy vetch for extra credit) to that spot just as the ground is getting ready to start greenup this season. I'd also throw a 40 lb bag of gypsum on that spot. Mow it off around labor day and throw rye back in there and you should be rid of them by the following growing season.

If that doesn't work, you can do some strategic feeding in that spot over the winter to jack up your nutrients.

If you get a chance, make a thread out of it. I was rooting for my thistles this past season. I had a spot I burned a huge brushpile in December of 2019. I cleaned it up with a skid steer in the summer of 2020 and planted it to rye/clover/vetch/collards/alfalfa/flax/rape/oats and a bunch of other stuff I had laying around. I thought for sure I'd have all kinds of thistle come back in 2021 where that soil baked under that fire, cause it was extremely hot (oak). I did, but they never took hold. That rye/vetch/clover/collards combo snuffed them out to where I couldn't even find any by the time the rye shot up in June.
 
This is what it looked like after I cleaned up all the stumps, ashes, and moved another huge dirt/debris pile that was there from years earlier. I took my wheeler and chain harrow to it to smooth it out.
1.jpg

I couldn't find my big pic of what it got to the following season when I let the rye go all the way to August, but here's a closeup of what was in there before I mowed it. You can see some vetch pods in the lower left corner. Tons of volunteer HV coming back in there, lots of straw, giant collards, with a 1/2" thick tap root down at least 12".
1a.jpg

Then I laid it all down with a dull and underpowered brush hog.
2.jpg

Few weeks later and a little rain, the race to accumulate the fall stockpile was on. Those light colored broadleaves in there are cocklebur. I never knew that until I ran them through a plant app. They never got big enough to set seed.
3.jpg
 
SD51555 said:
Let them grow and don't harm them in any way, even if they get 7 feet tall. Thistles are auto-toxic, so they won't come back once they've completed their lifecycle. But they need to complete their lifecycle, and they need to not get called back again (tillage, chemical burndown, single species planting, fallow period, or conditions simply so bad nothing else will grow). I have a hunch it's towards the end of the thistle's life cycle that some sort of organic acid is emitted by the mature thistle that acts as an inhibitor to the next thistle crop.
Click to expand...

I had no clue about that. Somebody should tell our road department. They spend all summer spraying them on the side of the road.
 
By completing their life cycle, wont they just spread millions of seed throughout that time?
 
Bill said:
I had no clue about that. Somebody should tell our road department. They spend all summer spraying them on the side of the road.
Click to expand...
The citizens can't tolerate letting things run their course. Not pretty enough.
 
4wanderingeyes said:
By completing their life cycle, wont they just spread millions of seed throughout that time?
Click to expand...
Millions and millions, but your soil already has millions and millions, and so does mine. There are also lots of other weed seeds in the soil bank just waiting for the right condition to come back. Most never do because the right conditions never come around, so those seeds will lay there perfectly dormant for decades waiting for someone to unleash just the right catalyst to awaken them so they can recharge the seed bank for another 50 or 100 years.

Resistance to germination is a fascinating science of seeds. I purposely spread a number of bags of dirty feed oats last summer in some new plot space I made just to see what would happen. I don't believe I'll get a single super zombie weed from farm country outta that deal. But not because they're not in there, but because I don't open the door for them to take off.
 
Good read! Thank you
 
Its like one of these Marvel movies where some devil has been frozen for 10 million years and then some idiot frees him. Then he wreaks havoc on the world until the good guys put him back in his tomb for another jillion years! Haha!

Dont open the tomb! Dont even give them the chance to flourish!
 
4wanderingeyes said:
SD,
this is off subject a some, but I had a soil question that I wanted to ask you. I would like to rid my plots of canadian thistle, I have been fighting them with mowing them down, several times a year, and I have been trying to get the soil amended to healthy. I have planted winter rye, clover, turnips, and radish in this plot for several years. The soil looks great. If, and when I have broke the soil, it was just lightly to scratch the surface. I have just a small area, about 30x50 feet that every year they keep coming back. I know you preach healthy soils to fix certain weeds. Can you preach to me what I should do different to make the soil less likeable for canadian thistle?

The plot I have the most problem with is my apple tree plot. I have 30 apple trees growing in this 3/4 acre plot. I have been planting in between the trees since I started the plot. My goal is to eventually let it go with a decent clover plot, but I like to toss winter rye in it in the fall to use up some of the built up nitrogen so I dont end up with a thick stand of grasses in it. Other then chemicals, do you have any suggestions? Or any idea on how many years of mowing them back, and hoeing them out it will take ti kill them?

I do have a lot of earth worms in this plot. 8 years ago, it was solid woods, and very acidic soil, hardly any worms.
Click to expand...
Just some thoughts but Canada thistles thrive in disturbed areas and an application of herbicide or tillage creates a serious disturbance to the land which promotes the growth of even more thistles to try to rebalance the altered soil. Most of our soils are very bacterial dominant from all our disturbances but if we try to create a more equal balance of bacteria to fungi ratio in the soil “weeds” cannot germinate. In bacteria dominate soils nitrogen is mainly in the form of nitrates N03 which weeds require to grow but in native prairies nitrogen is in ammonium NH4 which weeds cannot use. Along with that what most people call weeds are very high in certain nutrients(and/or they have long tap roots=compaction)because the soil is lacking in them and when they die they deposit those nutrients back into the soil. So if we grow species that are also high in those nutrients the undesirables will go away. Also applications of compost extracts/teas can speed that process up. I’m going to be doing some experiments this coming growing season with that, I have Canada thistle growing on some of my property so I’ll try to give an update.

Sorry if this got a little nerdy but I fell down hard into the rabbit hole of soil, plant, and ultimately human health a while ago.

Good read on the worms though they’re the type of tillage I want on my property.
 
Out of pure curiosity, I’m going to try to remover to do an earthworm sample this spring


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
I think spraying thistle and grazing applying organic matter and growing trees for leaf matter is better than letting thistle grow it’s course

Just braying
Great thread
 
I’ve read a few stories where large lakes that had held water for many years were then drained. Weeds that had not been seen ever or for years popped up even after being submerged for Lord knows how long.

Nature is amazing!
 
Nightvision said:
I’ve read a few stories where large lakes that had held water for many years were then drained. Weeds that had not been seen ever or for years popped up even after being submerged for Lord knows how long.

Nature is amazing!
Click to expand...
They draw down the Mississippi River by us once in a while to stimulate weed growth.
 
I am going to add nightcrawlers to some of my seedlings and bare root potted trees to see if they grow better than the non inoculated ones.
 
SD51555 said:
I have worms.

I place a high value on making sure I don't do anything to upset my earthworms if I don't absolutely have to (last year I had to). With all the pressure on the price and availability of products needed to make a plant grow, I thought it'd be a good idea to share a factoid article on the power of earthworms and some management considerations if you are looking to harness the power of the biological fertility cycle.

These guys can put up $200,000 per acre in non-toxic non-acidifying nutrients per year. Because of this, I make darn sure these guys stay in business.

worldagriculturesolutions.com

EARTHWORM PRIMER

“Biological Agriculture” relies on earthworms and other soil critters to do what plows and synthetic chemicals do in conventional agronomic systems. Follow the advice below to encourag…
worldagriculturesolutions.com worldagriculturesolutions.com
Click to expand...
Great article, thanks for sharing SD! So since fertilizer harms earthworms, would you even recommend adding fertilizer to a TNM plot that is in year 2 of the journey? Also, does lime harm earthworms like fertilzer?
 
I have planted soybeans on soybeans since 2016. I have always overseeded with rye in late summer and terminate in spring. I no till plant directly into this with an old jd 71 planter. It hasn't been fertilized since 2015.

The earthworm population is incredible in this plot, both crawlers and natives.

I am going to no till corn into this spring and rely on whatever nutrients are there to grow corn.

I'll then overseed with rye in late summer.

Hopefully the worms will still be there.

The herbicides I use will essentially be the same with hybrids I've been given.

I'll look at worm population again, next spring.
 
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