Travis Johnson wrote:In life there are things we want to do, and then there are a few surprises. As farmers we just have to roll with it. In this case, I would just sow down winter rye exclusively and you will be well ahead in the Spring time. Is it the ideal mixture you wanted? No, but it was not your fault, delays happen, so use what you can this year, and next year try your ideal cover crop mixture when you can get an earlierjump on it. Winter rye by itselfis an excellent cover crop and why so many farmers rely on it.
Todd Parr wrote:I use tillage radish a lot, but if it doesn't have at least 8 weeks or so before it frost-kills, it will have pretty limited growth. If you have 8 weeks, I would try it. Otherwise I would save the seed for later. Nothing says you can't plant tillage radish in the spring as long as you don't need that area for planting then.
Daron Williams wrote:A note on wood chips and nitrogen. If you don't till in the wood chips and just leave them on the surface you should not see a decrease in N levels. My understanding is that the locking of soil N only happens when you bury the wood chips or till them in.
Bryant RedHawk wrote:hau Andrew, Have you read my soil threads? They will probably give you some good ideas which will help you develop a good plan of attack.
Hops is a heavy feeding plant just in case you didn't know that.
The tool you might want to use is called a "Key Line Plow" To use one on large acreages you will need a large (150+ hp. tractor) to pull a 4 tine model.
Redhawk
Chris Giannini wrote:If it were my land I wouldn't drill or plant anything until you fix the ph problem. I would start with doing a few lab tests on different areas of your farm. Once you submit samples and get results I would suspect that the soil in low in phosphorous for which I would apply a large amount of fish bonemeal to bring the ph down