What does this soil test mean for a no-till vegetable garden?

Jon Stika wrote:Keep doing what you described you are doing and all will be well.  No lime or fertilizer is needed, just living plants as much of the time as possible.  The high P is from historic horse manure deposition.  

Joshua LeDuc wrote:  My neighbor, who has a lot of beef cattle, has been cutting my 2 pastures for hay.  This fall he remarked that I have a lot of broom straw grass (which I do) which is not a good grass for hay.  He told me I need to get my fields limed and that will help to eliminate the broom straw.  Can you or anybody else comment on the validity of this?  I'm trying to get my fields back in shape for grazing, as I want to get a couple of cows or sheep in a few years.

Joshua LeDuc wrote: When you talk about your cows being in portable fencing, are you saying that you don't have any permanent fencing around your pasture either?  I was always under the assumption that you need a permanent fence around the pasture and then one would create paddocks inside the permanent fence.  If you are saying that temp fencing is sufficient that would save me a lot of time and money on infrastructure.  

Joshua LeDuc wrote:James, that's good to know, and an interesting post.  I assume you are raising beef cattle?  How many cattle do you have on how many acres? Are you using the Gallagher portable fencing, or something else?  Also are you following your cows with chickens to cut down on fly larvae? That's a great tip to get your cows bucket trained!

With no till you are making that soil fungal dominant which is great for blueberries or fruit trees; however, vegetables don’t like it and won’t grow properly.  If you disturb the soil when planting, or have an adequate earthworm population, or even take a broad fork and just loosen the soil every few inches, that is enough to get the oxygen and other gases in so the Soil becomes bacteria dominant, which makes vegetables thrive.

James Freyr wrote:

Joshua LeDuc wrote:James, that's good to know, and an interesting post.  I assume you are raising beef cattle?  How many cattle do you have on how many acres? Are you using the Gallagher portable fencing, or something else?  Also are you following your cows with chickens to cut down on fly larvae? That's a great tip to get your cows bucket trained!

Yes we raise beef cattle, Murray Grey's to be exact. My wife and I are just starting, having moved to our farm last year. We have 3 heifers as that was all we could afford, and it's possible that three can turn into 21 in 4 years of successful breeding if I did my math right. I think that come the second half of the decade we could be scrambling to prevent having more cattle than the farms carrying capacity can safely handle. So we have about 60 acres, and approximately 33 or 34 of that is in pasture. The part of the farm the the cattle have been on this year contains about 10 grazeable acres and the other side of the ditch I mentioned earlier contains the balance of pasture, which was cut for hay this season. I don't precisely measure a paddock when I make a new one, I just eyeball it so they vary in size somewhat. After three days there is what appears to be, to some eyes, a lot of ungrazed grass left behind which is what I want and is part of the strategy of managed grazing. I'm not using Gallagher brand fence products, I chose Kencove over competitors. The prices are competitive, and they will repair their products. While I do have about 40 chickens, I am currently not running them behind the cows. I have to keep my chickens inside portable electric net fence to prevent four-legged predation by foxes, coyotes and neighborhood dogs that run loose, sometimes in packs, and I am just not ready to have the chickens going behind the cows. We do have plans for livestock guardian dogs, and when we get to that point, I will be ready to take down the electric net and rely on the LGD's to look after the chickens.

James, that is all very exciting!  It sounds like you're off to a great start with your cattle operation.  Nice talking.  

Faye Streiff wrote:My husband, Allan, is an international organic/biodynamic ag consultant.  One of his favorite books is When Weeds Talk by Jay McCaman.  You can tell by observation a lot of nutrient deficiencies and what is going on in on our soils by observation of what grows on it.  Broomsedge, along with most other weeds,  is on land deficient in AVAILABLE calcium and phosphorus and high in potash.  Calcium and phosphate have a lot to do with uptake of other nutrients.  They both build cell strength in a plant and a lot of other factors, protect from insect damage, and phosphorus has to do with uptake of sugars in the plant as well.  Don’t worry about the potash being too high, just bring up levels of other nutrients.  Compost tea sprayed on will boost microbes.  Earthworms like the calcium also and it will attract them if there is sufficient organic matter also.  Mowing in place and leaving the residue can mulch down and protect microbes.  A lot of soils are high in calcitic rock but it is not available due to low microbes.  We spray all our pastures with compost tea with cal/phos plus the trace minerals and most of the noxious weeds are gone by the next season.  We also mow it now and then if not rotationally grazed, to top off any weeds that do get through before they seed out.  Every time grass is cut or mowed, it root prunes, which is why rotational grazing is so good.  I think you already know all of that or you would not be doing the rotational grazing you are doing.  Mineralized pastures are higher in nutrients and protein and keep stock healthy.  Cows get out because grass looks greener on the other side of the fence, the heifers might be in heat, or sometimes they just seem to like going on an adventure so a little jaunt is in order.  Good luck with fencing, we’ve had the same problems here.  I once had a jumping cow and it was impossible to keep her in, but she always came home.  Somehow she could figure out how to jump out, but never how to jump back in and ended up at the gate bellowing for us to let her in.