The Dakota Lakes research station is a great source of information that can be used to formulate your Direct Seed system. This 30 page primer should be a "must read" for anyone considering Direct Seeding.
The caution here is: -- keep in mind that this station is in a 14-16" rainfall zone, but most of it comes during the growing season. When their spring "breaks", they have few cold (freeze or frost) nights that retard plant growth, where we are plagued with them. They have very cold winters but they get a lot of heat units during the growing season. With Direct Seeding, they have been able to bring high yielding winter wheat varieties normally grown south of I80, to north of I90. C4 crops like corn can be successfully grown. Prior to Direct Seeding the region was based around spring wheat. The principals that are stated in the guide are sound, but they have to be applied with knowledge of our climate. Don't try and shove a square peg in a round hole -- look for alternatives that follow the specific principal you are trying to achieve. The by-word for Direct Seeding has got to be: rotation--rotation--rotation. Successful DS starts with the combine and it's spreading of chaff and straw. Mats are difficult to manage. Beginning DS requires more applied N until the soil microbes adjust to the new system. This can be years. When tillage is stopped, destruction of organic mater is drastically slowed or stopped, which decreases N that is produced from these operations. Weed species are associated to a specific rotation of crops. Changes in rotation will change some weed species. Rotations with a mixture of high residue and low residue crops will diminish seeding issues. Chopping high residue crops creates a mat on the soil that helps hold moisture close to the soil. The down side to that is; cold, wet soils and tough surface mat to seed into.
(my comment: -- for us, the lack of markets and related value of the product for alternative crops have been a major stumbling block for us. Hopefully the future will be better for crops like dry peas, canola, mustard which we would like in our rotation. Another issue that has become clear is that everything is site-specific. Within a field, soils vary and micro-climates exist.)
One profound statement you will find in this guide is: pp.13--"Grossly understated is the detrimental effect of soil erosion on soil fertility. Preventing............................."
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