Amanda Delahoy

5% organic matter is very good, and your pH seems pretty good too.

I really wouldn't leave tilled ground open over winter, you will be killing all the friendly little microbes. Of your options, I wouldn't bother with 2. If you needed to improve organic matter you could do that, but you would still have bare soil open.

So, between the options of one and two... Would you have use for a cover crop? If you were potentially feeding animals, storing grain, making hay or mulch off of what you grow, you most certainly could choose your first option.

I would personally put in a cover crop. It gives a potentially unimportant crop the chance to get on top of whatever grass you may have, clearing the way for a useful and productive spring without the concern of grass taking back over during the tentative seedling stages where too much soil disturbance isn't helpful.

Hi! You aren't missing anything, your soil seems to be greatly improved if you started out with compacted hard, red clay.

As recommended, I would put in a crop of a legume (or, dig in a legume plant as green manure). Or, just keep putting on your leaves. This would improve your CEC, which could be why you aren't seeing the growth you want. Your CEC isn't given as an accurate reading, which probably wouldn't have happened because it isn't a wide scale agriculture area, by the looks of things. Your tests say is is greater than 9.0, which really could mean anything. Though, anything above 10 is preferred for plant production.

CEC measures the exchangeability of certain nutrients and minerals (calcium, magnesium, hydrogen, sodium, potassium, zinc, copper, manganese, and iron). Compost, if you want a reference point, usually sits around 37.5. The only way to improve accessibility is to add more organic matter.

Improving soil is a long process. Depending on how deep the samples were taken, you may need to remember that certain plants may be putting roots down even further than where it is being measured, into soil that hasn't felt your hard work yet.

**edited to correct spelling of "zinc"