Like you said, no till just stops the bleeding, but ya still got to heal. Healthy soil is tougher to compact, it's like trying to compact a sponge. Love your talks.
Great stuff you put out! I just started to no tilling on the buffalo ridge south west mn and incorporating cover crops an cattle grazing nothing better!
Great video I could listen to this stuff all day long. One issue I notice is you USA guys love narrow tyres. In my opinion I think they cause alot of compaction. I would like to know where you stand on that. Also would strip till be the same as conventional tillage just less of an area tilled. These farmers listen to the experts too much and to be honest they don't know it all either. I would love to see more no till happen in Ireland but people love moldboard ploughing here. Thanks for uploading a great video please make more like it.
James O Brien you are going to love this channel then! I have to stay with narrow tires so I can do in crop season work. But I strip the tractors down of as much weight as possible to travel as light as I can and still do an efficient job of providing traction. The strip-till gives me extreme control over my fertilizer program. And every year I'm adapting it and I'm getting better and better with it! But yes we chill up a 2-inch path every 30 inchs. The berm we make is about 4 in tall 8 in wide of warm and fluffy soil so we get the seating conditions of conventional till but we still have 90% of our field as no-till. I love the moldboard plow and when I seed Alfalfa I will use it. It's how I can make dairy quality alfalfa for right now.
Great video. Gives me new angles to think about. What techniques would anyone recommend for garden beds suffering with compaction and capping. I always use the short term solution by scratching the top inch to allow infiltration. I’m thinking, a plant that roots deeply but completely dies when the crown is removed.
for garden beds you can do all the cover crop and soil health stuff very easily!! depending on the size of your garden beds you can add some bags of pete soil, add a bunch of cover crop plants and then feed your plants that you want to grow!
Before I went no till,my soil test said I needed triple 16 and sidedress womith ammonia.3 yrs of no till with covers this years soilt test showed Ii needed 15-015 and that was all.my soil went from red to black,erosion has all but stopped and with the exception of a couple spots soil compaction has disappeared...I'll do cover crops and no till from now on
The difficulty in American society is the "magic pill" outlook. Everyone sees a problem as a single thing and expects a single simple solution. It's almost never that way. Whatever we decide is a problem has arisen from of the interactions of complex systems. Trying to apply some one-size-fits-all simple solution usually just knocks the system even further out of balance. You have to study the whole system to get a handle on what's going on. If you want to turn people off, there's no better way than to tell them the solution will require continuous study.
Very well said! I love a video that I posted last summer about hotel Edge begets more tillage and I showed how the soil works. And I love asking the disc Ripper crowd if their machine fixed compaction how come they still have to bring it out every year. I have never gotten a response out of any of them yet
Love your notill videos. Some farmers just don't get it . I chiseled up a field of sod today that hasn't been tilled on in 20 years the whole time I'm kicking my self in the but seeing this black sand and worms . And I felt like I was destroying it But the field was terribly rough and trees that I keep mowing of when making hay twice a year. What would be a better option.
Dustin Eitenmiller I dont know. its hard to give a good answer when I am not familiar with the farm. if the field is rough we have to get it back to smooth?! we have to do the best we can for each field. if that means a little tillage in spots to fix roughness or clean up ditches then thats what we have to do. I am in the same boat. i want to seed alfalfa but right now the only way I can do that to make top quality hay is to moldboard the field. you will be amazed how quickly that field will heal when the tillage stops.
Good question. They not Julie they obviously make nitrogen how much gets to be a contribution the next year pretty good question. On my erodible soil doing tillage before and after soy beans is going to be a net loss and really promote compaction in our soil. Soybeans have the potential the cash flow really well but to heal my soil it just require different management.
@@jonstevensmaplegrovefarms3754 So on a more heavy soil would it better to notill in the next crop or do some vertical tillage after cover crops?. This would be in Ontario where the growing season is very short fyi.
Kind of depends. How good is your infiltration, are you having a wet spring oh, do you have compaction layers or good soil structure? I don't know how eager I would be to Vertical till behind cover crop because if you're in that heavy soil depending on the machine being used don't you just create a compaction layer? Strip-till is the Great Compromise. For no till you got to make sure the soil is fit
@@jonstevensmaplegrovefarms3754 Yea I left the soil dormant for one year and it absolutely OVERGREW!!. Nutrients and all are very good in the soil. It has not been farmed since about 20 yeas ago using organic methods and vegetable gardening. That being said. The soil turns into a rock if not tilled.
Midwest Allis Fan. I dont know. there are a couple guys using it and they are careful to run it shallow to just lay the stalks over. if you run it deeper to mix as much dirt as you can get onto the residue then its not helping. just like any other tillage your residue will get burnt up quickly. we want all the residue we can laying on top. a phillips harrow works very well in a no till program.
Exactly! There are guys that are on that droughts and like I said you could turn the garden hose on and walk away. at the end of the day come back and you would not have a puddle of water. That is dry soil. They're making a v t Tool Work by not disturb in the soil just laying the corn residue down and a little bit of shopping action and they're not moving hardly any dirt at all.
Its possible in any rotation just have to make a few changes. Both of them crops work well in no till and work well with covers. You probably dont want to use a cereal cover crop behind beans, but a clover annual grass mix with wheat would be a good mix for soil!
@@jonstevensmaplegrovefarms3754 would the clover need plowed under to get the full benefit? That's what I remember dad doing years ago, raise clover in the wheat to plow down in the fall. Now we try more to get double crop beans in after wheat harvest, but I have a hilly farm that will probably never see double crop or fall tillage. So I'm trying to learn some other ideas and hope to improve soil health.
No we don't need to plow it under to get the benefits. Things work differently when we stopped tillage but we still get the benefits if you get more benefits. At the end of the day it's soil life that is growing your crop and so I figure I'm going to invest my time and energy and making a better environment for them. In the long run they'll make my farm a better environment for me.
I can remember around the turn of the century I was at some Dairy conference and was talking about mold board following alfalfa and an older guy said will why would you do that. I said because that's how it has to be in a questioning tone. He says well I'm in Western Minnesota and I haven't bought an alfalfa field in decades I just no till my corn into it. I said yeah but you don't know my environment than my soils and all that typical blah blah blah rhetoric. I wish I could rewind 20 years and ask questions instead of being a close-minded modern farmer
Strip till is something I'm wanting to try this fall, in wheat stubble. I'm relatively new to your channel, but I see you do strip till. What do you do for nitrogen application? And are you able to do it in a growing cover crop and still be able to find your strips in the spring?
A lot of information in the comments very interesting. I love it because I learn something every video and you’re a good looking man lol.
ha yes
Like you said, no till just stops the bleeding, but ya still got to heal. Healthy soil is tougher to compact, it's like trying to compact a sponge. Love your talks.
I like the passion
Thanks
Great stuff you put out! I just started to no tilling on the buffalo ridge south west mn and incorporating cover crops an cattle grazing nothing better!
Nice!
Southwest Minnesota you've got the soil Health Coalition down there that you can join and talk to them members!
@@jonstevensmaplegrovefarms3754 yep you bet ! I’m on the board for the local coteau sfa chapter! We’re trying to get it going again.
I’m in sw Minnesota been playing with notill beans .everyone said it t won’t work . It’s been working pretty well for me
Nice! There is a lot of Minnesota soil health coalition members down that way. Great group of people!
Great video I could listen to this stuff all day long. One issue I notice is you USA guys love narrow tyres. In my opinion I think they cause alot of compaction. I would like to know where you stand on that. Also would strip till be the same as conventional tillage just less of an area tilled. These farmers listen to the experts too much and to be honest they don't know it all either. I would love to see more no till happen in Ireland but people love moldboard ploughing here. Thanks for uploading a great video please make more like it.
James O Brien you are going to love this channel then!
I have to stay with narrow tires so I can do in crop season work. But I strip the tractors down of as much weight as possible to travel as light as I can and still do an efficient job of providing traction.
The strip-till gives me extreme control over my fertilizer program. And every year I'm adapting it and I'm getting better and better with it! But yes we chill up a 2-inch path every 30 inchs. The berm we make is about 4 in tall 8 in wide of warm and fluffy soil so we get the seating conditions of conventional till but we still have 90% of our field as no-till.
I love the moldboard plow and when I seed Alfalfa I will use it. It's how I can make dairy quality alfalfa for right now.
I never really liked beans but like you said it’s part of a program. The deer eat too many for me.
Great video. Gives me new angles to think about.
What techniques would anyone recommend for garden beds suffering with compaction and capping. I always use the short term solution by scratching the top inch to allow infiltration.
I’m thinking, a plant that roots deeply but completely dies when the crown is removed.
for garden beds you can do all the cover crop and soil health stuff very easily!! depending on the size of your garden beds you can add some bags of pete soil, add a bunch of cover crop plants and then feed your plants that you want to grow!
Very true information!
Before I went no till,my soil test said I needed triple 16 and sidedress womith ammonia.3 yrs of no till with covers this years soilt test showed Ii needed 15-015 and that was all.my soil went from red to black,erosion has all but stopped and with the exception of a couple spots soil compaction has disappeared...I'll do cover crops and no till from now on
Nice! Keep up the hard work and good luck this year!
@@jonstevensmaplegrovefarms3754 thank you,same to you
The difficulty in American society is the "magic pill" outlook. Everyone sees a problem as a single thing and expects a single simple solution. It's almost never that way. Whatever we decide is a problem has arisen from of the interactions of complex systems. Trying to apply some one-size-fits-all simple solution usually just knocks the system even further out of balance. You have to study the whole system to get a handle on what's going on. If you want to turn people off, there's no better way than to tell them the solution will require continuous study.
Very well said! I love a video that I posted last summer about hotel Edge begets more tillage and I showed how the soil works. And I love asking the disc Ripper crowd if their machine fixed compaction how come they still have to bring it out every year. I have never gotten a response out of any of them yet
Love your notill videos. Some farmers just don't get it . I chiseled up a field of sod today that hasn't been tilled on in 20 years the whole time I'm kicking my self in the but seeing this black sand and worms . And I felt like I was destroying it But the field was terribly rough and trees that I keep mowing of when making hay twice a year. What would be a better option.
Dustin Eitenmiller I dont know. its hard to give a good answer when I am not familiar with the farm.
if the field is rough we have to get it back to smooth?! we have to do the best we can for each field. if that means a little tillage in spots to fix roughness or clean up ditches then thats what we have to do. I am in the same boat. i want to seed alfalfa but right now the only way I can do that to make top quality hay is to moldboard the field.
you will be amazed how quickly that field will heal when the tillage stops.
Doesn't Soybeans add Nitrogen to the soil? it might not do much for organic matter but it dose do some for regenerating soybeans.
Good question. They not Julie they obviously make nitrogen how much gets to be a contribution the next year pretty good question.
On my erodible soil doing tillage before and after soy beans is going to be a net loss and really promote compaction in our soil.
Soybeans have the potential the cash flow really well but to heal my soil it just require different management.
@@jonstevensmaplegrovefarms3754 So on a more heavy soil would it better to notill in the next crop or do some vertical tillage after cover crops?. This would be in Ontario where the growing season is very short fyi.
Kind of depends. How good is your infiltration, are you having a wet spring oh, do you have compaction layers or good soil structure?
I don't know how eager I would be to Vertical till behind cover crop because if you're in that heavy soil depending on the machine being used don't you just create a compaction layer?
Strip-till is the Great Compromise. For no till you got to make sure the soil is fit
@@jonstevensmaplegrovefarms3754 Yea I left the soil dormant for one year and it absolutely OVERGREW!!. Nutrients and all are very good in the soil. It has not been farmed since about 20 yeas ago using organic methods and vegetable gardening. That being said. The soil turns into a rock if not tilled.
@@mattcraztex9940 What is the soil like in a fenceline or edge of woods?
What are your thoughts on implementing a vertical tillage program? Also where are you at in Minnesota
Midwest Allis Fan. I dont know. there are a couple guys using it and they are careful to run it shallow to just lay the stalks over.
if you run it deeper to mix as much dirt as you can get onto the residue then its not helping. just like any other tillage your residue will get burnt up quickly. we want all the residue we can laying on top.
a phillips harrow works very well in a no till program.
Jon Stevens Maple Grove Farms that's what I like a vt tools that don't move soil just enough to size residue and help loosen the top inch
Exactly! There are guys that are on that droughts and like I said you could turn the garden hose on and walk away. at the end of the day come back and you would not have a puddle of water. That is dry soil. They're making a v t Tool Work by not disturb in the soil just laying the corn residue down and a little bit of shopping action and they're not moving hardly any dirt at all.
Do you think it would be possible to maintain soil health with a no till on both soybean and winter wheat rotation?
Its possible in any rotation just have to make a few changes. Both of them crops work well in no till and work well with covers. You probably dont want to use a cereal cover crop behind beans, but a clover annual grass mix with wheat would be a good mix for soil!
@@jonstevensmaplegrovefarms3754 would the clover need plowed under to get the full benefit? That's what I remember dad doing years ago, raise clover in the wheat to plow down in the fall. Now we try more to get double crop beans in after wheat harvest, but I have a hilly farm that will probably never see double crop or fall tillage. So I'm trying to learn some other ideas and hope to improve soil health.
No we don't need to plow it under to get the benefits. Things work differently when we stopped tillage but we still get the benefits if you get more benefits. At the end of the day it's soil life that is growing your crop and so I figure I'm going to invest my time and energy and making a better environment for them. In the long run they'll make my farm a better environment for me.
I can remember around the turn of the century I was at some Dairy conference and was talking about mold board following alfalfa and an older guy said will why would you do that. I said because that's how it has to be in a questioning tone. He says well I'm in Western Minnesota and I haven't bought an alfalfa field in decades I just no till my corn into it. I said yeah but you don't know my environment than my soils and all that typical blah blah blah rhetoric. I wish I could rewind 20 years and ask questions instead of being a close-minded modern farmer
Strip till is something I'm wanting to try this fall, in wheat stubble. I'm relatively new to your channel, but I see you do strip till. What do you do for nitrogen application? And are you able to do it in a growing cover crop and still be able to find your strips in the spring?