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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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mike_belben

Praise The Lord

mike_belben

I dont think its been a week yet and the portion of plot 3 that i covered in a light film of stump grindings has shown signs of improvement.  The corner of that plot that i mulched in SGs shortly after seeding has great germination of wheat and clover so far, the best in my yard.  2nd place is the corn plot that i mulched in grass from bag mower, and in 3rd is the bare dirt bed that is rows of brassica overseeded entirely in clover to have thinning for the chickens.  

A billion little green heads have popped up on that bed but the soil crusted and it seems to be stalling growth.. I think the morning dew is evaporating instead of soaking it.  I just covered half that bed in SGs to test the difference.


I am very in favor of mulching right ontop of seed at this point.. I do have a lot of cardinals eating seed from the bed 1 every morning but im happy to see them.  It would be a factor if this was about money and heavy mulch would eliminate seed loss by bird.  


I wonder if variable mulching thickness could be used to time the ripening of something you want in small successive batches.  It certainly takes longer for emergence from a big clump of woody matter.
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newoodguy78

@Firewoodjoe have you put your cows on the Sudan grass yet, how are they liking it?

Firewoodjoe

No I haven't. There's a large patch by a old hole that grew exponentially well. 9-12 feet tall I'd say and it's still green. Wet juicy. It's not worth the risk for me. My luck they will run straight to that patch and die lol  i was hoping to Sunday. It's been below freezing a few times now. It's a cross of Sudan and sorghum and sorghum has the prussic acid in it. 

Southside

Oddly enough my Johnson Grass is all brown and gone, but my Indian Grass, which is in the Sorghum family is still green and not showing any signs of stress from several frosts. 
Franklin buncher and skidder
JD Processor
Woodmizer LT Super 70 and LT35 sawmill, KD250 kiln, BMS 250 sharpener and setter
Riehl Edger
Woodmaster 725 and 4000 planner and moulder
Enough cows to ensure there is no spare time.
White Oak Meadows

mike_belben

Years ago i watched a few long covercrop discussions showing soil.changes and improved water infiltration rates.  Just recently stumbled onto the guy again, it is dave brant and he started covers in '77 on a dead farm in ohio. today he has like 22 inches of chocolate cake and grows pretty epic corn with low inputs.



Anyway he continually found that a legume alone is not as effective as say a legume and a grass or broadleaf.  It turns out the non nitrogen fixers basically take N off the legume who alone is only fixing enough N for his own needs.  But legumes are generous neighbors... When sown in combinations they will fix more N in larger nodules to share with the crowd.  So the right planting combos doesnt create nitrogen scarcity, but abundance.  

I will try corn, clover and cowpea this year.  


Another dave brandt thing is that his neighbors are trying to plant corn in april and burning through fuel tilling in crusted or and muddy bare soils.  Dave lets his winter covers get thick and tall.  In june rolls/drills into a firm dry field. Has charted fuel consumption for decades and saves 3-5gal per acre planting into a rolled cover.  His ground far outproduces the neighbors in B/acre even with shorter window.

The covers are swarming with insects when he rolls. Theyre in a balance that has allowed him to stop pesticide applications because the predator species keep the pest species under control.  3 days later dark green corn emerges from a wavy coulter slot in dense stubble without any N application. 


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newoodguy78

Quote from: Firewoodjoe on November 12, 2021, 06:47:56 PM
No I haven't. There's a large patch by a old hole that grew exponentially well. 9-12 feet tall I'd say and it's still green. Wet juicy. It's not worth the risk for me. My luck they will run straight to that patch and die lol  i was hoping to Sunday. It's been below freezing a few times now. It's a cross of Sudan and sorghum and sorghum has the prussic acid in it.
I'd be on the cautious side too especially with my luck  :D

newoodguy78

I was listening to a couple of David's seminars yesterday working in the shop. Smart guy. The cover crop bug has bit me hard. :D
Did you see some of his radishes  :o

mike_belben

Praise The Lord

mike_belben

Forage Crops for Maximum Livestock Nutrition with Paige Smart - YouTube


i have gained a lot of unique info from Paige Smart in this video, part 1 and 2.  its primarily grazing forages but much much stuff i have not come across in a solid year of studying up, all in one spot.  i will watch this one over and over through the years.

my winter wheat came up first then kinda paused.  wherever the little baby clover and winter pea has come up with it, the wheat is back on a growth spurt and thickening.  so its starting to look obvious now that its been pointed out to me where to actually look, that the wheat is getting nitrogen from the legumes and not from the dirt.  this is the bed where the corn sucked up what little fertility i had started it on and never added anything additional.  
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newoodguy78

The legumes after corn is a smart move in my opinion. It takes good ground to grow good corn. I enjoy growing it but there's no doubt in my mind it's harder on the ground than anything else we plant. Just sucks up everything. 

mike_belben

im pretty sure i said it here earlier and iirc its gabe brown who grows corn with legume.  i wanna say cowpea interseeded and it increases corn yields.  then youve got extra tonnage in the stubble to graze off and no bare ground.  between combining the corn and putting the cows out would be a good time to broadcast a winter cover mix for the cows to mash in.

and now im getting foggy on where i encountered that the more demand on a legume the more it fixes nitrogen nodules.. not only larger but also more potent.  if you dig up a root and find the little balls then crack them open, pink vs green shows how much fixation is going on.  the legume doesnt take that much itself so seeded alone the nodules will be small and i think its green.  when mixed with heavy feeders the non legumes make synergistic deals and demand for more nitrogen off the legume. i guess that explains why my crimson and rye did so well this past spring.







thats may 11th, seeded in fall.  middle of the woods, just on the side of a logging trail under a thinned but pretty full canopy other than the road.  no lime or fertilizer.  not prime dirt by any means other than a high fungal content. 


just around the corner with a little more light but otherwise same with the exception that i scalped the topsoil off 3x or so in the past and piled it for a while.  to plant, i raked a few inches off the corner of that pile onto basically a clay road bed then seeded.  


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wisconsitom

Another way to look at legume/N fixation;  If soil already has adequate N, little fixation.....poor, infertile soil, plenty of N fixation.

All over the natural world are such relationships.  Even just using chemical fertilizers can all but eliminate most mycorrhizal fungi.  Little need by parent plant for such fungal associates when soil already rich in nutrients.  It would be a bit like a human taking vitamins, but with no actual knowledge of whether or not said vitamin(s) is or are in short supply.  There will be no response where there was no deficiency.

Gotta wonder Mike if the guy you reference isn't one and the same as farmer I saw on tv recently-very much the iconoclast-going WAY against common big-ag practice.  I can't recount all now but one thing really stood out-he grows corn only where soil indicates already adequate N and other nutes!  Talk about a different approach!  Most big (and medium [and most small, heehee]) farmers happily send their topsoil into the ditches and streams every spring and then again in the fall.  Chocolate pudding after every heavy rain or snow melt.  Going.....going....gone!  That topsoil was just a place to hold the chemicals.
Ask me about hybrid larch!

Southside

A better time to sow your cover crop into corn is right before it closes together. The rains will beat the seed into the soil and it will sit there in the shade all summer and do nothing. About the time the corn starts to dry down and more sun hits the ground it germinates.  By the time the corn is off your cover crop is 6" tall and going full steam ahead. Eliminates bare soil and really reduces late summer weed pressure such as Palmer Pigweed. 
Franklin buncher and skidder
JD Processor
Woodmizer LT Super 70 and LT35 sawmill, KD250 kiln, BMS 250 sharpener and setter
Riehl Edger
Woodmaster 725 and 4000 planner and moulder
Enough cows to ensure there is no spare time.
White Oak Meadows

newoodguy78

I'm looking to experiment next year with the corn. Thinking about a clover Sudan grass buckwheat mix put on as I cultivate. What I don't want is it to get too high. We hand pick everything so knee high or anything above your ankles really becomes a pain when picking. Timing of planting it would be key. 
When it was done being picked I'd like to just bush hog it off and let the sun have at it. 
Read good things about yellow sweet clover being put in this way. 
That was done with field corn however. 

Southside

I think the Sudan might be competition. If you could precision plant it and the corn was say 36" to 40" rows then I wouldn't be as concerned. 

Yellow sweet will get tall and "brushy" for lack of a better term. Up your way a crimson / annual white clover mix would likely give you a one / two punch. 
Franklin buncher and skidder
JD Processor
Woodmizer LT Super 70 and LT35 sawmill, KD250 kiln, BMS 250 sharpener and setter
Riehl Edger
Woodmaster 725 and 4000 planner and moulder
Enough cows to ensure there is no spare time.
White Oak Meadows

mike_belben

YSC is very stemmy.  i have it growing wild, over my head in spots.  youd need a machete to walk through a mature stand of it and then itd be trailing behind your ankles.  high stepping required. 

Praise The Lord

newoodguy78

The Sudan competition is something I've thought about hard  Stuff works well for me in this ground would like it to work but in that application not so sure. I'm banking on red clover this year for sure, have 100 acres of it planted at about 10#\acre mixed in my cocktails now.

Ideally  like to put something in at the last cultivation that would be it for the summer and carry through the winter as well, by just bush hogging the corn down and leaving it. The vlume of trash on top of the cover is another issue. That would eliminate a bunch of field field work.

I plant on 30" rows while it's easy to adjust the planter I like that spacing. Sweet corn by nature doesn't shade the row like field corn near as well, if I went wider the natural weed suppression would be compromised in my opinion. Have toyed with putting the early plantings on 24" spacing just to help shade the row better. The early varieties don't germinate as well nor do they produce as much foliage. Weeds in the early corn are a real issue.

The " brushy" nature of the yellow makes me hesitant to interseed it. There's enough work picking as it is without making walking miserable.
Do have about an acre and half that's mostly yellow with a little red and a few radishes mixed in. Plan to let the yellow just about reach maturity then disk it in and plant the ground with no fertilizer at all. Certainly a trial run into uncharted territory for these parts.
What I've read on yellow clover is a good stand planted  at 20-25#\acre puts between 125-150 pounds of N to the acre into the ground. If that's actually the case growing cheaper to us corn is a reality. Time will tell.

newoodguy78

Quote from: mike_belben on November 16, 2021, 09:51:18 PM
YSC is very stemmy.  i have it growing wild, over my head in spots.  youd need a machete to walk through a mature stand of it and then itd be trailing behind your ankles.  high stepping required.
I always have a machete in my truck or tractor during the season but have no desire to use it picking corn   ;D. Also high stepping with a bag of corn in front of me no longer sounds like fun either. 

Southside

I think Abruzzi Rye planted at your last cultivation would be fine.  Sudan is going to grow in the same weather as your corn. Abruzzi is going to sit there and wait for the days to shorten and cool more before it really takes off, then as you said - it's done after the stalks are addressed.  That would make for great fall stocker feed.  Protein in the rye / clover mix and dry matter in the corn stover.  

Down this way Abruzzi will run about $11 / BU, plant 2 to the acre.  
Franklin buncher and skidder
JD Processor
Woodmizer LT Super 70 and LT35 sawmill, KD250 kiln, BMS 250 sharpener and setter
Riehl Edger
Woodmaster 725 and 4000 planner and moulder
Enough cows to ensure there is no spare time.
White Oak Meadows

newoodguy78


Southside

FWIW in the spring I will leave strips of winter annual - Abruzzi, Gulf Rye Grass, etc. ungrazed and let it go to seed.  The next round it's hard seed and the cows spread it for me. Most years even without that I will get 30%-50% seed production on the second or third rotation anyway so I get a lot of "free seed" every year.  That "free seed" begins to germinate around October after the warm season grasses have run out, they don't compete at all with the warm season stuff even though they are there in the soil the whole time.  Same thing happens with my crab grass, it goes to partial seed ususally once during the summer, and again in late September / October, but none of that germinates until probably May or so. 
Franklin buncher and skidder
JD Processor
Woodmizer LT Super 70 and LT35 sawmill, KD250 kiln, BMS 250 sharpener and setter
Riehl Edger
Woodmaster 725 and 4000 planner and moulder
Enough cows to ensure there is no spare time.
White Oak Meadows

newoodguy78


mike_belben

awesome.  i just looked those guys up.  seems like they do a pretty tidy business.  did bulk order get you below the $10/yd theyre advertising?


i hope it works out well.  a yard of fertilizer would sure cost a lot more and wont do the microbial life any favors. 
Praise The Lord

newoodguy78

Not sure if you looked up the same guy I'm dealing with. There appears to be quite a few Martin farms within in trucking distance  :D . The first one that came up for me was a composting facility. These folks are out of Ghent NY. Been great to deal with so far and  seems quite knowledgeable.  He's charging by the ton. 25/ton delivered not sure exactly but guessing works out to around 15/yard? 
Got to look at the fertilizer bill for this year :o :o, oh my. Can only imagine what it's headed for next year.  The savings to the farm is potentially phenomenal if this works out. If it doesn't most likely will be looking for work. 


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