homegrownbucks
New Member
So say in Wisconsin on a corn/bean food plot rotation, would you just broadcast into the field in the fall once the crip dries a bit? Then roll/spray in the spring and plant into that?
Thoughts on Dirt management
- Thread starter E_308
- Start date
bigbluetruck
Active Member
One things threads like this have taught me is that changing the way a food-plotter thinks is relatively easy, because their livelihood is not in question if it takes them two or three tries to get something working right for them. If I try my hand at grafting and they don't take, there's always another tree or another year, but if I'm trying to make a living from an orchard, failure is very expensive! The same is true with ranchers and farmers...they've got to go into something fully understanding the process and the risks involved. With that said, I am firmly convinced that plows are the devil, growing plants the solution, and throw-n-mow or minimal tillage is, by far, the best choice for most food-plotters or farmers.
It's challenging to read the stuff Doug writes, although I try. Maybe some things don't distill down very well, but when someone fairly new to the game looks through a thread like this, it can make their head spin! A lot of the new folks I work with find the learning curve to be daunting; many give up before really experiencing success. That's too bad, because I think the habitat management stuff is more rewarding than the hunting, at this stage in my life.
Jason you hit the nail on the head, as a farmer, say you start at 20 and quit at 75, thats 55 years, sounds like a long time, but youve only got 55 chances to get it right, and success or failure relies on that one chance. For food plotters a failure means youre out a little money usually, a failure for us usually means were out alot of money and lost income, so its a NFL-punter-wearing-spike-toed-shoes kick in the nuts.
Thats partially why its so hard, the other is somewhat based on tradition. How many of the food plotters have no background in AG? That makes it easy to think outside the box. For most farmers, theres generations of tradition, "thats how Dad/Grandpa did it" which I know Im guilty of it. BUT in my defense it goes back to only having one shot a year. If you only have 1 shot a year at a buck of a lifetime, are you gonna be trying everything new, or are you gonna stick to the tried and true? I think about it like this, my family has been farming some of this land continuously for almost 120 years, through the depression and dust bowls of the 30s, through the 80s, and thats some weight on my shoulders. So like you said, I need to 100% know what Im getting into before I do it, and even then everyone farms a little different, what dgallow does in MO might not work here in central NE, or vice versa.
Jason Broom
Well-Known Member
Excellent points, BBT...and I fully respect any decision you make that impacts your livelihood and ability to support your family!
With that said, are you able to experiment, on a small scale, with bits and pieces of your farm? I have made offers to farmers to let me lease access to their land, with a stipulation that I control what is planted in a small field, or an odd-shaped off-shoot from a larger field, but I've always been turned down. It seems to me that those are harder to plant and harvest, so maybe there would be opportunities to manage those bits n' pieces differently, just to see what obtains?
With that said, are you able to experiment, on a small scale, with bits and pieces of your farm? I have made offers to farmers to let me lease access to their land, with a stipulation that I control what is planted in a small field, or an odd-shaped off-shoot from a larger field, but I've always been turned down. It seems to me that those are harder to plant and harvest, so maybe there would be opportunities to manage those bits n' pieces differently, just to see what obtains?
bigbluetruck
Active Member
We are starting with this one food plot, Hopefully next year I can convince dad to let me put some covers on a little odd strip of field that most of the time doesnt yield much because its pretty much pure yellow clay. God I hate that stuff. Its slick as snail s#@t when its wet, then if you look at it wrong, let alone touch it with a piece of equipment, when its wet it turns to something harder than concrete, and then finally when it does dry out it turns to powder.
catscratch
Well-Known Member
I can address this to some extent. Farming is time consuming and most farmers don't want to spend a lot of time changing set-ups. Planting a small odd shaped part of the field differently than the rest may not seem like a big deal but if it requires changing the drill over to the disc, or bringing the tractor back from the back field, or anything that breaks routine becomes unattractive. Not saying that is 100% the issue with experimenting, but I do know a lot of these guys have things planned out to a T and changing things for a little part of the field gets in the way.
Jason Broom
Well-Known Member
That makes perfect sense, but if you're going to try something new that may help your bottom line, or be cost-neutral while benefiting your soil, those small, odd-shaped pieces of a field would be ideal.
catscratch
Well-Known Member
I agree 100%.
bigbluetruck
Active Member
Youve got a point, theres another too, farmers are the ultimate optimists, if we werent, this job would be depressing as hell lol. Ya 9 out of 10 years that little spot might only raise 10bu while the rest raises 200, but then theres the one year it raises 200 while the rest raise 250.
Jason Broom
Well-Known Member
Is it possible, with "Dirt Management" efforts, to have more consistency and less variability in yield? I'm being sincere, not trying to bait anyone.
Rempump870
Member
Here in the southern half of Wisconsin, I am seeing more and more no till/cover crop operations. The dairy guys growing silage corn are still working and disking fields but it seems other farmers are moving away from it. On my lease, the owner just leased out the farm fields to a organic farmer. It will be interesting to see how this new farmer takes a conventional farm/acreage and turns it into a organic farm. Currently the fields are planted end to end in WW. I am curious if he is going to till it in and plant something else or let it go to seed/combine.
Tap
Well-Known Member
I think so. I've seen some interesting demonstrations on how healthy soil allows better rain infiltration and moisture retention. Wouldn't that help bridge the gap during stress periods?
Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
This thread has me remembering high school ag classes back in the '70's. I can recall my teacher, Mr Gross preaching about the loss of OM in our soils due to endless cycles of tillage, wind and water erosion, and the worse culprit, fall tillage on sloping ground. I recall farmers my dads age being resistant to no-till techniques, mostly because pre-glyphosate herbicides were tricky to get on at the precise time, and, well stubbornness. 35 years later the sons of those men are starting to experiment with cover crops as a way to hold soil in place, and improve OM content. My take on changing farmers? You really can't. But generational change is happening, mostly on a time scale too slow to view in a single lifetime.
Sent from my iPhone using Deer Hunter Forum
Sent from my iPhone using Deer Hunter Forum
Start with some local soil health or no-till on the plains meetings or call Dwayne Beck at Dakotah Lakes Research Center (around Piere SD)...or visit the station. Producers in that area are very fortunate to have tremendous professional NT/SH resources. This is always a great series of short videos for those starting into soil health practices or those needing a boost as problems are encountered. You will find one of these individuals who you can relate to.....then visit them at a meeting or go to their farm. Your network is what will keep you going through tough times!
https://vimeo.com/user12619881/videos/page:1/sort:date
One things threads like this have taught me is that changing the way a food-plotter thinks is relatively easy, because their livelihood is not in question if it takes them two or three tries to get something working right for them. If I try my hand at grafting and they don't take, there's always another tree or another year, but if I'm trying to make a living from an orchard, failure is very expensive! The same is true with ranchers and farmers...they've got to go into something fully understanding the process and the risks involved. With that said, I am firmly convinced that plows are the devil, growing plants the solution, and throw-n-mow or minimal tillage is, by far, the best choice for most food-plotters or farmers.
It's challenging to read the stuff Doug writes, although I try. Maybe some things don't distill down very well, but when someone fairly new to the game looks through a thread like this, it can make their head spin! A lot of the new folks I work with find the learning curve to be daunting; many give up before really experiencing success. That's too bad, because I think the habitat management stuff is more rewarding than the hunting, at this stage in my life.
The challenge is to challenge ourselves to keep the land improving....rather than become content while the land stagnates. IF you want complexity, I can post soil microbiome test results which came in this week.....16 distinct family groups and 12,700 different bacterial species in my pasture sample....going to take time and some expert advice before I can digest all of that! That is where having a network is invaluable!
Just graze and observe,
Doug
+
Sure. Anything's possible.
My dad grew up on a small farm. The only farming he does now is his food plots. The first time I convinced him to try a throw and mow, he assumed it would be a complete failure, because it was so different than anything he'd ever know to be a viable means of planting a crop.
He went along because he was curious and a failure wasn't the end of the world. I see many farmers NOT being able to take such a risk. Now I also see plenty driving new GMC Denail 2500HDs, too.
[QUOTE="Turkish, post: 45658, member: 1664]
He went along because he was curious and a failure wasn't the end of the world. I see many farmers NOT being able to take such a risk. Now I also see plenty driving new GMC Denail 2500HDs, too.[/QUOTE]
Tax purposes on the trucks...
He went along because he was curious and a failure wasn't the end of the world. I see many farmers NOT being able to take such a risk. Now I also see plenty driving new GMC Denail 2500HDs, too.[/QUOTE]
Tax purposes on the trucks...
bigbluetruck
Active Member
Sure its possible, but it seems to take years to do. Its like being between a rock and a hard place, you want to improve the soil, but it takes some serious cover cropping years and most dont have the ability to survive the income loss. But it sounds like were gonna get to try some out, with someone elses money.
Some land weve been custom farming sounds like they want to change things up from a corn/bean rotation and go to possibly a C/B/ small grain, which brings in the possibility of some serious cover cropping, but does make logistics of getting rid of small grains a little tougher, but it does sound like its going to be a fairly small amount of acres. These people have plenty of money so a failure doesnt hurt them at all.
bigbluetruck
Active Member
Tax purposes on the trucks...[/QUOTE]
Tax purpose and the fact that we live in our trucks, we dont have anything that new, but they are well taken care of for their age.
I dont understand the mentality that farmers should be second class citizens. If someone does well in a business and has nice things, a big house and lots of expensive cars that rarely get driven, everyone looks up to them, but a farmer buying and using a brand new pickup is looked at with scorn.
Edit: Im sorry but thing like that strike a nerve with me, even our fairly small farm handles more than a million dollars a year, but our average take home is slightly more than a average starting wage of a trade job, or even less some years, while working an average of 80 hours a week or more, then people have the nerve to think we should be second class, not picking on anyone here in particular, just the genereal public.
Last edited:
Tax purpose and the fact that we live in our trucks, we dont have anything that new, but they are well taken care of for their age.
I dont understand the mentality that farmers should be second class citizens. If someone does well in a business and has nice things, a big house and lots of expensive cars that rarely get driven, everyone looks up to them, but a farmer buying and using a brand new pickup is looked at with scorn.[/QUOTE]
I think farming is the most underpaid profession there is. Many uncontrollable risk factors and producing a commodity that is essential to life. In a day and age where the preponderance of people in the country haven't a clue how to produce food let farmers fail and a new perspective may develop.
bigbluetruck
Active Member
No I apologize if you feel that rant was directed at you, I was reading another thread on a farming forum the other day about people losing rented ground or having the rent raised because they bought a new pickup or something like that and the landlord thought he was making too much.
Similar threads
