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The Feed Crop, Grain, Forage and Soil Health Thread

Started by mike_belben, September 06, 2021, 04:24:28 PM

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btulloh

10-4 on the crop diversity. I haven't seen anything about no-till on anything other than corn, wheat, and soybeans. Root crops and leaf crops would be a whole 'nother thing. I suppose it would require separate areas for no-till corn from the other stuff. What you've got going there is a scaled up version of what i used to do here when I was raising a big garden and a couple acres of sweet corn - working up the whole thing and planting all the various things.  I didn't have any bottom line to worry about though since it was just a hobby thing. I gave a lot of produce away but I never made a nickel on any of it.
HM126

mike_belben

Quote from: btulloh on November 19, 2021, 10:14:06 AMI gave a lot of produce away but I never made a nickel on any of it.
oh i know someone who keeps a ledger on such things. good on you sir. 
Praise The Lord

btulloh

Well that's why it was worth the effort. Not to mention things like pecan pies and such that got dropped off by the ladies I gave stuff to.  So there were many benefits, just not monetary. I don't miss trying to keep up with picking fifty tomato plants and a hundred pepper plants though. 
HM126

mike_belben

getting along with the neighbors is always the right way to live. tall fences have cost this country a lot in goodwill lost. 

alrighty, this one is NC late fall early winter.  note the neighboring cow pasture grazed to dust.





this is a check strip down the center of an overwinter cover crop mix





the cover crop was rolled and planted in soybean in may and the photo was taken in june. it shows how much weed pressure was suppressed by the rolling of a cover.  the check strip is left alone and you can see the last of the cereal grass mat remaining where the soy hasnt poked through yet.  





i imagine it woulda took a lot of tillage or spray for the soy seed to emerge through that overwinter weed bed. thats an extra pass no matter how you look at it. how many bushels come off the top to put the fuel in at $4 diesel?  how many bushels to pay for spray and laborer wage?  how many bushels for fertilizer expense?

he is planting into that cover crop with a conventional planter and laying the cover down with literally a fencepost dangling by chains off the front bumper to lay the cover.
Praise The Lord

mike_belben

next up.  tally up the value of inputs those radishes gets you in micros and macros in addition to soil armor and deep tilling. 





 they put a root down to a new depth in compacted soils, one where a root didnt exist.  now that a root is there root exudates flow down into a deeper soil layer and pave the way for the microbial life that will feed on this liquid carbon, amino acid whateverall the root is leaking out that attracts the biology to dig deep and repair that compaction.

btulloh you beat me to it with your link this morning, showing a diminishing return on N applied to corn after corn. 





 

Praise The Lord

Southside

Like anything the solution is balance. No-till is an excellent practice, until your soil is rock hard and moisture just runs off of it. Your only weed control becomes chemical in many cases.

Mold board plowing is great for turning under sod, but will create a plow pan in the right conditions and again cause issues with water and root infiltration.

Vertical tillage is a good compromise when used with a constant crop / green manure system that can build soil and give you non chemical control of weed pressure.

Often the solution is a combination of all of the above. I used an offset disc to breakup no-till corn ground this fall and put it into alfalfa. The plan is to leave it that way for 5 years. Might then put in a Sudan X crop for one season then back to alfalfa. Conditions at that time will decide. 
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btulloh

Good info. 

The radish contribution blows me away. I like to eat radishes but I never knew what the could bring to the party. Wow.

Mike, what about N volatility over time? Any comparison of how different types of N sources last in the ground?
HM126

mike_belben

these next 3 are a bit disturbing when we look at the dates.  it seems that somehow, someone or somemany rather, managed to keep some pretty handy info suppressed for most of a century.  i know we had ww1, the great depression and ww2 to thank for the corporatization and consolidation into big Ag from subsistence farming.  the availability of information was much more challenging until now, but we had the land grant university system from lincoln's day that was supposed to use extension service to educate the unwashed redneck masses.  i dont know who to point the finger at but 2 things come to mind.  one is the memory of a scientist interview where the researcher describes the changes that occurred to his industry when "global warming" showed up.  since everything is run on grants, he could no longer just be studying the mating habits of squirrels.  it had to be the mating habits of squirrels with respect to global warming or the project would not get funded. the central pocket book forces the science industry to become believers or become bankrupters. 

the second thing that comes to mind when i contemplate this, is that all the fertilizers and various blank-0-cides have bought an awful lot of pretty shiny things with the farmers' checkbook in the last century, while he got old and broke and sold out to a subdivider to pay for senior medical care. bit of an outrage when ya think of it, an institutional scale fleecing. 


so by 1912 american research concluded successful yields could be had without N additions using legumes in coplantings.




we knew by the 1930s that white roots matter.  note the middle column is the quantity of microbes found in immediate area of plant roots vs just randomly out in the soil.  it takes a plant at all times to keep dirt alive, period. and this is OLD news that everyone should know.  the common person knows more about a celeb they will never meet than the food they will die in a few weeks without. this shows that clover is one lively son of a gum.  1.13 billion microbes are found per one gram of root mass. 
 




this one i am still confused on as rick haney glossed over it in a few seconds on a presentation video.  i will try to find his email to get clarification.  i think it shows us that by 1934, we understood that tillage absolutely massacres the quantity of microbes in a soil. lucerne is alfalfa, a legume.  i believe this is showing us when you till the microbes in the soil cannot live away from the root mass any longer so any dirt without a living root becomes lifeless.  im not sure if it suggests that the tilled soil microbes die or that they just lunge over to the nearest root.






if i were selling synthetic fertilizers and found this information, the first thing i would do is ensure every single bag says "step 1:  till the seedbed"  


 and i will paraphrase in a little more i have picked up in my travels. without microbial life, naturally occurring minerals in the soil are not converted to plant soluble form.  all these little micro bugs that eat each other have a C:N ratio to their composition.  if critter A needs a 3:1 ratio and it feeds on another critter that has a 1:1 ratio then it has to eat 3 of them, arriving at a 3:3 C/N ratio that it cant maintain so and it then farts out the two spare nitrogens in plant soluble form.


this next one is from rick haneys research in the 1990s.  today he is the guy pretty famous for "the haney test" which apparently is saving farmers tremendous amounts of money by crediting the nitrogen already present in the soils thereby reducing N input and still getting the same yield.  basically not wasting fertilizer that the co-op test will insist you purchase.  his tests are radically, radically different than conventional soil tests and he was completely rejected by the university system early on (with a PHD in soil and working as a Ag Research Service agent for USDA!) 





plotting carbon release on 3 different soil sites that increase in fertility as you go down.  so thats why we need well draining soils, aha! the dirt doesnt cycle carbon and nutrients if it doesnt have wet and dry cycles. i guess that explains why irrigation pays. why cover crops that are slick with morning dew in between rain events pay. the larger the biomass of a big green fluff of plant matter, the more surface area to collect frost and condensate to moisten the soil that will be dried in the afternoon sun and wind then moistened again by the morning dew.  the more protection from frost, the slower the thermal cycling etc etc.  
Praise The Lord

mike_belben

Quote from: btulloh on November 19, 2021, 11:11:50 AM

Mike, what about N volatility over time? Any comparison of how different types of N sources last in the ground?
i personally have absolutely no idea on any of this, im clueless. just repeating information i consumed. i read too much to remember, and then type the most pertinent of what i read as a memory exercise, since im losing a lot of it.  plus then i can go back to the thread in a year and read my own highlights when i dont remember any of it.  someone says a topic and ding.. someone else research tidbit pops up and i can type it, it may be right or wrong.  but i still dont really know anything. 
the conventional system educators and salesman obviously all say it gasses off. ken hamilton just popped in my head and i think i linked his vid a few pages back about manure applied raw vs composted that details this.  he says volatilized raw manure gasses are from aerobic putrification, that they are toxic, if i am getting it right. he manufactures microbial products to convert anaerobic manure lagoons to aerobic.  they boil and swirl, i bet it smells awful! ken says you dont buy manure for nitrogen.  you buy it for microbes and they are poisonous ones until you aerobically compost it. 
i think yesterday i read an organic certification requirement preventing the spreading of raw manure to 120 days prior to a crop harvest but none for composted.  that seems to support the belief in folks besides ken that fresh manure microbial life needs a rest period to do something or other.  i think youre gonna volatize the N by the time whatever that is happens regardless. 
as for urea and anhydrous ammonia i have no idea. im sure i can find those who says its a miracle and others who says its a cancer.  i know ammonia refrigerant almost killed me at the scrap yard so i will have none of that in my shed or my salad. 
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mike_belben

if your N comes from legumes i dont think there is any losses to worry about.  i am gonna learn how to not pay the co-op for anything but seed.  if there is more yield in some other way i dont care one bit. i want mine free. god made the garden long before the fertilizer plant showed up and im sticking to it. 
Praise The Lord

btulloh

Well urea and anhydrous are generally said to last about thirty days or so under optimal conditions. I don't know anything about the natural sources. 
HM126

mike_belben

with "regenerative" practices it presently seems to me youd have about 3 choices and are probably best used together in the effort to avoid buying N.

1. plant a nitrogen consumer with a nitrogen fixer during the growing season so that the legume is loaded with demands from the cash crop and produces larger nodules of atmospheric nitrogen that go to the cash crop.  

2.  always feed the soil biology with living root exudates and decaying organic matter/carbon so that there is an abundance of microbial life respirating plant soluble nutrients.  eating each other and farting out the excess.

3 is kind of a 2B.. promote micorhizal fungi at all times.  plant roots are limited in their outreach in the search for nutrients but fungal networks are not. google says the largest living thing on earth is a 2300 acre fungus in the malheur national forest that is entirely interconnected.  

my friend grows giant pumpkins for competition, on a pallet. they get moved by forklift.  its not got anything to do with how much N you inject, but how large of a mycorhizal network you can grow.  one pumpkin requires a bed the size of his house and it cannot be disturbed.  sugar and wood chips grow fungus and it definitely changed my gardening experience.  the left side of my garden was always larger than the right.  when i relocated it i discovered a white fuzzy path right into my dirt floor compost bin 10 feet away.  like a maple across the yard drinking from the leachfield.  i started the bin on rock hard clay.  it was chocolate cake 6" below grade when i moved it.


gabe brown is in the dakotas and with only 11 inches rain a year and like 200 days below freezing or something terrible like that, he still manages to grow sweet corn i believe, with cowpea interseeded to feed nitrogen to the corn. i know he is no till, i think he is no fertilizer and iirc occasionally sprays down a cover.  i may be off a bit on some of that as its hard to keep track of all these different producers but i think youd get some good info from his talks. ray archuletta is like a ring leader of all these people.  pretty sure dave brandt is no fertilizer either.  rolling covers in ohio since 77.


i will be testing it all this summer with zero fertilizer or chemical and the minimal ground disturbance i can manage. 
Praise The Lord

newoodguy78

Percentage of organic matter plays a large roll in tying up nutrients to be available for plants be it grown or applied. I have no scientific proof just my own thought. 

btulloh

True dat, NWG.

Mike, the N is really for plant and leaves and general vigor. K is for the fruit and P is for blooms.  That's a way over-simplification, but easy to remember.  And then there's the micronutrients and beneficial fungi and soil composition and pH that you've been working on.  Pretty deep subject and I only know enough to be dangerous.

I listen the Rural Radio channel on Sirius if I'm in the car during the day. A lot of crop reports, prices and futures, and news related to ag. Not a bad listen and no drama, just facts and info.  Afternoons tend to be devoted to soil fertility, pest management, best practices, etc.  Some things are a bit like infomercials and some are general research related. Not a must-listen thing, but generally informative and better than politalk or music you hate. Anyway, some of these same things get covered that are in this thread. Some if it's big ag and some it's the more natural practices.
HM126

wisconsitom

Biggest gripe about no-till here in the north is slow spring soil warmup.

There's an even bigger patch of fungus-Armillaria, or honey mushroom up in the UP.
Ask me about hybrid larch!

mike_belben

honey mushroom, thats the one i googled.  

the first link was the forest service saying the biggest one is in oregon but not living in either state im not gonna get in a rick measuring contest about it.

;D


just to reiterate, none of this is me.  i have only succeeded in growing corn one season in my life and it was dent corn from a sack of deer feed. but i ate it anyway.  shows how smart i am!  

the world is changing fast and food cost is outpacing my non-existent income.  kids are growing faster than the paychecks around here so i either put food on the table or turn into a welfare statistic.  i think you can see im pretty motivated to go the former route. 
Praise The Lord

btulloh

Probably better to grow some maters and peppers and string beans and such and not even mess with corn for your purposes. Sell or trade some maters and peppers to get your corn. Corn takes space, water, nutrients, and practice.  A few mater plants and pepper plants can supply the family during the summer and enough excess to can or freeze or pickle. Much better return on time, space, and investment. 
HM126

mike_belben

i already do that.  the corn is the base for the chicken feed. someone in my family is sick and i am trying to produce completely perfect food because of that.  i have to.   the more year round feed i can grow the more high quality critters i can finish relatively quick without buying feed or hay. not just corn.  i have 10 different brassicas planted right now plus cover crop on 3 gardens. will probably grow 20 or so different things this summer.  im clear cutting the entire back acre and a half or so right now while low grade wood price is up.


its nearly impossible to purchase fruit and vegetable that is 100% free of glyphosate, chemical fertilizers, herbicide, pesticide etc or meat that doesnt have antibiotics, growth hormones or a terrible omega 6 to omega 3 ratio. we can thank big Ag for creating the worlds first malnourished, yet obese society.  thats all for a whole other thread. this crop stuff is a fraction of how much medical research ive read in the past 6 months troubleshooting the illness that western medicine cant solve. 
Praise The Lord

newoodguy78

Quote from: mike_belben on November 18, 2021, 11:24:21 PM
100 likes on your results.

What is the bare dirt from ? disking ahead of a planter?  

Did you take any pics of the covers up close?  


 

 
The bare dirt was from disking in crops that just finished pictures taken yesterday. 
Here's the close ups 

moodnacreek

Mike, man you are really into it, way way beyond my pay scale. All I can say is the your gonna need a lot of chickens.

mudfarmer

Keep at it Mike. You can produce good pure food with no chemical inputs as your research has shown. Sometimes I get bogged down and over complicate things...  It really is simple and folks did it for a long long time. We have never and will never put any chemical big ag junk in on or around our food production areas and end up with bumper crops. Compost, organic matter, fungus, "weeds"!, Nitrogen fixers and supplemental water when needed. 

Definite yes on cow peas!!! Love em

mike_belben

Quote from: moodnacreek on November 19, 2021, 07:11:47 PMway way beyond my pay scale.
no sir, this one is pro bono as always !
:)


thanks for the vote of confidence MFer  ( ;D )  wheres your pics man dont be shy
Praise The Lord

mudfarmer

Here you go



 

This was a quick last minute cleanup before hard frost. No big deal, right?

Well we didn't even bother to plant tomatoes, squash or peppers this year. Two years in a row we have had to "weed" things that others would be spending money on seed for. Hundreds of tomato plants this year. Thinned down to 25 and moved around. Had four volunteer pepper plants that sprouted on their own and grew bunches Bunches of red peppers. I can't even manage that sometimes starting them inside in February. There is a seed bed, like the woods. The secret is unexpectedly almost always pigs  ;D




 

 






 

 


No pesticides, herbicides, chemically derived fertilizers, industrial waste, just good dirt sunshine and water like mama would have wanted.

mike_belben

Heck yeah!  Looks great.  Thats some big maters. 

This past year i had volunteer squash, beans, pepper and tomato. 
Praise The Lord

SwampDonkey

I usually pull tomato 'weeds', like pulling lambs quarters. :D

I start my peppers in April and maters I should start in May. This year it was April for the tomatoes, but way too early. :D Peppers are a lot slower than tomatoes. But I had pepper stalks like woody saplings before I finally pulled them 'late' last month that frost had never hit. How many peppers do you want to eat?? ;D  Surplus of winter squash, gonna have to cook and freeze some, pies for some to. :)
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

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