I have a 7 acre field that the local farmers refer to as blow sand, 6A in the Northeast. It is essentially beach sand with minimal organics. Ideally I'd like to grow hay for livestock but will consider pretty much anything to get it productive. It remains sand about 30-40ft down to the water table and then even more sand below that. Speaks to some neighbor's farmers a few of which farmed on it or neighboring fields it will grow really good spring grains, as it dry out quick in the spring, a few mentioned oats were very good. However after mid-july it's just too dry and basically all growth stops. A few mentioned putting tons of manure on it but that it doesn't last long and just washes out.
It's been fallow for about 20 years and is a sparse growth of mostly quakgrass and a few shrubs.
I just planted some test plots of summer cover crops to see if anything did well; crimson clover, alfalfa, buckwheat, songhorum, sudangrass, sunn hemp, and some potatos. Looking to see if anyone had other suggestions or ideas to build up the soil to make it more productive.
