[7/5/14 Update]-- This field has a complicated soil structure, and many areas where the soil is relatively thin over broken rock--we're talking inches, not feet. Currently the stand is pretty good but looks a bit ratty. Visually, It has that leopard look without the evenness of spots, and I expect the condition will become more pronounced as the season progresses. The drill design fault is more pronounced, --leaving 20" rows instead of 10" rows over the hog-backs. I think I know how to fix this. Other areas are showing crop stress (lack of development), even though there is no shortage of moisture. This field started with exceedingly high moisture level in the top 4 feet. We need to get soil and tissue tests and make some comparisons as was recently pointed out at the Wheat College seminar. The barley is heading, and there is a lot of unevenness. Our field that borders this field is barley on barley and looks significantly better(even) at this point in time. This field has 50-60acres on the west edge that will make a great test area for out of the box thinking. There is enough shallow soil to make any attempt at moisture saving using fallow a waste, so annual cropping is a no brainer. I have no doubt, with this field being along the hwy, that, what we do, will be the talk of the community for years to come. Kye has a 5 year rotation worked out for the whole farm. What I/we do on this 50-60ac will, hopefully, work in conjunction with the rotation crop present. What that is, has yet to be settled on but options are developing as we/I surf the internet on interseeding and cover cropping. Building biomass in general, and OM in particular is crucial. Small gains in OM produce large gains in moisture holding capacity, and the ability of a soil to manufacture nutrients needed for crop production. Recycling and redistributing nutrients within the soil root zone is something that we need to figure out also. Exciting times. Challenges and solutions put meaning to life.
[5/24/14 Update:] Excellent emergence. Not perfect but close to it. The CrossSlot design limitation showed with some of the back rank openers shallowing up when crossing over small hogbacks that some of our topography contains. The crop stand is even, meaning it all emerged in one or two days. The field of barley on barley next to this CRP also has excellent crop emergence.
This spring we get to seed the first crop on ground that was put into CRP back in 1986. 2013 was a good year to kill the old CRP stand. There is none of the old stand that seems to have survived. There was a lot of new seedlings that we were able to get a RT3 application on prior to seeding barley.
It will be interesting to see what kind of yield we will get off this field. Some of the ground is shallow, and all was badly degraded through erosion from approximately 75 years of cultivation prior to entered the CRP program.
The pic below represents the CRP field before and after the drill planted spring barley.
While checking for the seed. We found worms everywhere. This was a good sign for soil health.
The flash of the camera washed out the soil color. It was a much darker color in real life. This pic was good to show worm castings. Everywhere I checked, the soil at seed depth was mostly made of worm castings. It was surprising to me.
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