Regenerative Plotting

DocHolladay said:
In response to "what does it say about dandelions"...

Very low calcium
Very high potassium
High chlorine
Low humus(decayed om)
Poor residue decay
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Based on the 2020 soil test for this plot, the calcium is low, but not "VERY LOW", and the potassium is not very high. 2017 and 2020 soil tests, and we added lime last May, after the test was taken. There's very little OM in this section, and hardly any residue, due to the drought last fall. The 2017 test was done with a shovel, while the 2020 was done properly with a soil probe. It was perennial clover until 2019. I'm just baffled by how poorly this section did/looks, compared to all the other plots with lower pH and less soil fertility.

Reference for calcium levels.
https://ag.purdue.edu/agry/Purdue Agroecology/Kteam/fs719.pdf
 

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RGrizzzz said:
Based on the 2020 soil test for this plot, the calcium is low, but not "VERY LOW", and the potassium is not very high. 2017 and 2020 soil tests, and we added lime last May, after the test was taken. There's very little OM in this section, and hardly any residue, due to the drought last fall. The 2017 test was done with a shovel, while the 2020 was done properly with a soil probe. It was perennial clover until 2019. I'm just baffled by how poorly this section did/looks, compared to all the other plots with lower pH and less soil fertility.

Reference for calcium levels.
https://ag.purdue.edu/agry/Purdue Agroecology/Kteam/fs719.pdf
Click to expand...
How many years was it clover? Did it have any grass or chicory in it?
 
No chicory when it was clover, but it did have grass, that was a constant battle. It was clover for 10+ years. I'm sure there's a ton of nitrogen in there.
 
RGrizzzz said:
No chicory when it was clover, but it did have grass, that was a constant battle. It was clover for 10+ years. I'm sure there's a ton of nitrogen in there.
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I bet you just exhausted your organic matter holding back the grass for that long.
 
Good info guys. I do think there is a lot of compaction on this section. We had debated disking it, but I think we'll just drill through the dandelions at the end of of the month. There is some clover mixed into it, and little to no chicory. The section next to it that we disked late last spring is LOADED with chicory. (same mix planted in fall) One section we crimped and one we left standing. The section we crimped looks awesome with chicory. If the summer soil builder does poorly, we'll look to disk this problem section once, before the fall planting. Maybe mix in some gypsum, since it's clay soil. A single disk and gypsum addition made a huge improvement in our now best plot. It was crusting hard, and that did the trick. We're really trying to avoid it, but I think we might get a better fresh start for the regen/notill model if we do it once, only when necessary.
 
I will continue to say that strongly believe this is a direct correlation to a large amount of N being pumped into the seed bank, without an adequate balance of CtoN crops occurring thereafter. I would continue to no-till drill it and increase diversity. As you increase the thatch and above/below-ground diversity, you will start to reduce weed competition. If this was grass or something else, I would be more apt to suggest a burn off with GLY but I really don't see this a huge issue, since you have drill.

Also, I would not worry about the low P. P is heavily banked in most soil types and is only bio-available once the biology is there to make it so. Also, if you take a soil sample earlier in the year (Jan-March), biology is working but far less active than during the growing season. This alone can reduce the amount of P in the soil test results but is not directly indicative of what is actually available in the soil as we establish the fungal networks and plant symbiosis.

Hope this helps. Best of luck! Let us know how it works!
 
RGrizzzz said:
Based on the 2020 soil test for this plot, the calcium is low, but not "VERY LOW", and the potassium is not very high. 2017 and 2020 soil tests, and we added lime last May, after the test was taken. There's very little OM in this section, and hardly any residue, due to the drought last fall. The 2017 test was done with a shovel, while the 2020 was done properly with a soil probe. It was perennial clover until 2019. I'm just baffled by how poorly this section did/looks, compared to all the other plots with lower pH and less soil fertility.

Reference for calcium levels.
https://ag.purdue.edu/agry/Purdue Agroecology/Kteam/fs719.pdf
Click to expand...
These problems may or may not be all happening at the same time. It is just what they have seen to be the causes of these “weeds” being there.
6a695e3d240fec180a657d610f96723c.jpg



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Good news and bad news. The bad news is, there won't be any barley pics this year. I took on a massive rainfall in early April that flooded my grains planting out. By the time the water went down, the grasses got a jump start and that plot got away from me. The good news is, I've got another new plot that was a result of a burn pile and lots of moved dirt. When the burning and cleaning was done last summer, I leveled it all off with my drag and wheeler and planted everything I had in it.

White clovers, red clovers, annual clovers, alfalfa, hairy vetch, birdsfoot trefoil, rye, forage collards, and more annual stuff. This spring I overseeded rape really early, but it wasn't any match for the clovers, vetch, and rye. When I planted, I didn't put down any fertilizer, lime, or chem of any kind. It came like gangbusters! I had some horsetail and thistle early on, but I can't find it any longer.

It's been dry by me. There hasn't been 3/4" of rain in 9 weeks. I'm lucky in that the roots of my plots are damn near touching the water table. So long as I can keep the sun off the dirt, I think I'll be ok.
z.jpg
zz.jpg
 
MarkDarvin said:
Good news and bad news. The bad news is, there won't be any barley pics this year. I took on a massive rainfall in early April that flooded my grains planting out. By the time the water went down, the grasses got a jump start and that plot got away from me. The good news is, I've got another new plot that was a result of a burn pile and lots of moved dirt. When the burning and cleaning was done last summer, I leveled it all off with my drag and wheeler and planted everything I had in it.

White clovers, red clovers, annual clovers, alfalfa, hairy vetch, birdsfoot trefoil, rye, forage collards, and more annual stuff. This spring I overseeded rape really early, but it wasn't any match for the clovers, vetch, and rye. When I planted, I didn't put down any fertilizer, lime, or chem of any kind. It came like gangbusters! I had some horsetail and thistle early on, but I can't find it any longer.

It's been dry by me. There hasn't been 3/4" of rain in 9 weeks. I'm lucky in that the roots of my plots are damn near touching the water table. So long as I can keep the sun off the dirt, I think I'll be ok.
View attachment 22013
View attachment 22014
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Looks great! Very impressive stand, especially without any fertilizer last fall or spring. I’m just not quite brave enough to do that yet on a brand new plot.
 
KSQ2 said:
Looks great! Very impressive stand, especially without any fertilizer last fall or spring. I’m just not quite brave enough to do that yet on a brand new plot.
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I wasn't sure it'd work right away. I think I got lucky because I hadn't dug up the surface soil. Other places where I've dug or buried the topsoil, it's not gone like this. I wasn't ever planning to lime this one, just to see what would happen, but I ended up putting a 1/2 ton rate on last weekend. I had extra lime left over and I wanted it outta my storage space.
 
Looks awesome Mark!

@KSQ2

Before you spend too much on FERT. Check out this video on 2 soil samples, extracted the same way, sent to different labs.....I'm not saying we need 0 fert, but I strongly believe there are better options than just dumping the fert to the soil. John Kempf has some impressive research on this as well, think Law of the Maximum.



I have not used FERT on my farm in 2+ years and my yields are increasing!! If we balance the CtoN, add diversity, keep the ground covered, and balance the amount of biomass the deer remove (if over browsed root exudation does stop), we will build soil!
 
buckhunter10 said:
Looks awesome Mark!

@KSQ2

Before you spend too much on FERT. Check out this video on 2 soil samples, extracted the same way, sent to different labs.....I'm not saying we need 0 fert, but I strongly believe there are better options than just dumping the fert to the soil. John Kempf has some impressive research on this as well, think Law of the Maximum.



I have not used FERT on my farm in 2+ years and my yields are increasing!! If we balance the CtoN, add diversity, keep the ground covered, and balance the amount of biomass the deer remove (if over browsed root exudation does stop), we will build soil!
Click to expand...
I’ll check it out, I’m working towards not using fertilizer in established plots, my concern was new plantings.
 
KSQ2 said:
I’ll check it out, I’m working towards not using fertilizer in established plots, my concern was new plantings.
Click to expand...
For sure brother! I still use some but more so foliar and try to target specific limited nutrient. Example is iron. Iron is often bound up due to redox reactions in soil. By adding chelated iron, if limited, we can see a tremendous crop response.

John Kempf covers this greatly.
 
It may not work on larger plots as much, but recently I'm spreading composted cow manure over my smaller plots. I get the compost from a local "organic" gardening company who has the cow manure composted, and then screened very fine to remove as much weed seeds as they can. It costs about the same as a triple 13 bag from wally world. I know the composted cow manure is not the same "punch" as triple 13, but I figure it has to help. I remember watching Dr Woods talking about his "steel buffalo" crimper and the only thing he couldn't figure out was the urine and manure aspect - the light came on since I use this stuff on my lawn/gardens at home. As my plots grow larger, I most likely won't be able to cover the whole plot every year with this stuff to truly make a difference, but I plan on experimenting some, and may do something of a checker board pattern or the areas closer to the stands.

I am interested in doing some kind of foliar spray, but I haven't convinced anyone to walk the plots with backpack sprayers yet - need to get Santa Claus to bring me a sprayer for our side x side/tractor this year. I do need to run the numbers to see how it stacks up in nutrient costs.
 
Is there a thread somewhere about foliar fertilizer?? This is Greek to me and a google search didn’t do much...
 
KSQ2 said:
Is there a thread somewhere about foliar fertilizer?? This is Greek to me and a google search didn’t do much...
Click to expand...
I did some research on it some time ago. Never tried it as I'm fert free and just couldn't bring myself to bite the bullet. Looked pretty simple.

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KSQ2 said:
Is there a thread somewhere about foliar fertilizer?? This is Greek to me and a google search didn’t do much...
Click to expand...


Listen to anything and everything John has on youtube. I cannot keep up with all I have listened to of his but I have been impressed.

I have started to play with Fish Hydrolosate in my garden and I have been extremely happy, thus far. I just got Haney test results back and my C02 respiration is fantastic!! No synthetics cover crops, diverse plants, no-tillage!!
 
New Video
Conventional Tests vs. Haney - are we overusing fertilizer, based on the variability of soil test results?

This was an absolute blast to put together and took a lot of time but I learned a LOT from this experiment and urge others to try the same!
Get outside, and Build Better Soil! Build Better Soil!

 
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