CONVENTIONAL TILLAGE & MOISTURE

It's that time of year!!  We, along with our neighbors have started making fallow that will be seeded to WW this fall.  There are as many ways to do this as there are farmers in the area.

I walked into this field the other day (not ours) and smelled the pungent aroma of fresh tilled soil, and also I felt a significant difference in humidity while traversing from the cultivated area into the non cultivated area.  It was a bit startling.   There is a lesson here!  (actually 5 that comes to mind.)
1--Soil moisture:  Moisture has been exposed by the cultivator and is being evaporated out of the soil at a rapid rate, raising the humidity.  Some documents I have cruised indicate approximately 0.5" lost per trip.  (Many years ago, I checked this on our operation and found that we had lost ≈0.5"+ in three operations of cultivating, weeding, harrowing to set up the fallow.)
        On this field(pic), the lack of residue (standing or not) allows air movement along the surface, removing the high humidity(100%) interface between soil an the atmosphere, --if you see dirt there isn't enough residue to protect the soil.  This high humidity layer is constantly being replaced until the soil can no longer provide the moisture.  Research shows that most of our soil moisture is lost through EVAPORATION (83%+) from the soil surface.  The best moisture saving practices keep the surface COOL and CALM.  This loss can not be eliminated, but it can be dramatically slowed.
2--Soil Temperature:  Destroying residue that covers the soil raises soil temperature.  This in turn increases the evaporation from the soil.  Research shows a 20 degrees difference between covered and uncovered soil.  Our own testing verifies this.

 3--OM is being destroyed.  Tillage introduces oxygen (air).  By combining  OM(fuel), oxygen, and heat(from ground and atmosphere), so the biological furnace is stoked and the OM is destroyed, converting to elements that include nitrogen(N), and CO2.
 4--CO2:   --is released into the atmosphere.  When soils are not disturbed, a relative balance of gases is established in the soil profile.  The two most notable are oxygen and CO2.  Cultivation, while adding oxygen to the soil releases CO2 from the soil.  There is some exchange of these gases all the time through soil interaction with plant growth and biological activity; however, soil disturbance accelerates this phenomena.  The more intense the disturbance, the greater the gas exchange.  Conventional fallow, requiring several tillage operations, releases CO2 to the atmosphere several times during that fallow period.  Minimizing mechanical soil disturbance, and building soil structure through plant diversity is the best way to provide oxygen to the soil, and control the release of CO2 into the atmosphere.
5--N:  There is no question that N is produced by this accelerated biological furnace, and standard soil tests acknowledge this by calculating an expected amount of N, from a given level of OM.
      The stability of this N seems to be the question, and I am totally confused at this point.  Nitrate N is water soluble and goes where the water goes.  Ammonia N ties to the soil particles and goes where the soil goes.  Both of these forms evolve over time.  This has been known for many decades.  A high percentage of these forms end up in the public waters.  From what I'm reading, our crops are only using about 45% of the N that we apply.  That's pathetic, costly to our operations and the environment.
       Now "Organic N" is becoming a subject of discussion.   What is this, and what distinguishes it?  From what I am reading, Organic N is suppose to be stable and available to plants.  It's not suppose to disappear except through plants or the physical removal of the organic matter from the field, --but information is all over the board on this subject and my understanding is minimal.  Please enlighten!

SOIL HEALTH - USDA SERIES

USDA, with their "UNLOCK THE SECRETS OF THE SOIL" series have some great stuff in easy to understand Utube presentations.  Most are 2-4 minutes.   Attached is a 20 minute compilation titled "The Hope in Healthy Soils".                    soil health compilation

2016 SPRING CROP UPDATE

      SUMMARY:  Nothing compares to the CrossSlot for direct seeding into adverse seedbed conditions.  Our 2016 crop consists of WW, WP, DNS, SB, SP, M.  All the crops emerged well with good populations, and growing.  Our crop year is starting out 1-4 weeks early, depending on what indicator you use.  The lilacs are 4 weeks early, cheatgrass is ≈1 week early,  The Iris are 3 weeks early.  Our moisture gain faltered in April with only 0.5"and nothing is showing in May to this point.  Warm weather is upon us, and stored moisture is depleting.  This may be another year that will tell us more about the moisture saving aspects of tall residue, ground surface cover, and using a ULD seeding system compared to the bare soil with conventional tillage.  I have been watching different operations in the area.  Conventional tillers have gone over the fields with 5 trips, and some with as many as 7 trips to get their crop in the ground.  We have sprayed and seeded.  Our crop stands are better than most, and comparable to the best.  With CT and the closer drill row spacing those fields (in their better ground areas) look fuller; however, studies have not shown yield increase with that system, --everything else being equal.  The closer row spacing normally will canopy quicker offering the potential of lower moisture loss from evaporation on bare soil.  With all this being said, there are times that I wonder if 8" row spacing would have been better for spring cropping, even with the CS.

WINTER WHEAT (WW):

       We are very pleased with the progress of the crop at this point in time.  We have two ages of cultivars in the field.  One emerged on time near the end of September and is tall and a good dark green color.  The other emerged in November. It has good growth and a dark green color but is 6-8" shorter (this includes the CC winter wheat which has the same height, but a little lighter in color).  Very surprising is that both cultivars are in the 8 leaf stage.  What did the older cultivar gain in the 6 weeks extra growth other than longer internodes?  We will check the head size and fertile meshes when the time comes.

         The cover crop area WW has good height and color for it's late start in the fall.  It will be interesting to see what the yield lag may be between the CC and CF winter wheat.  We have a long border between the two that will give us some indication as to yield difference on comparable soils.  The CC field generally has much shallower soils than the CF field.

         Another question without an answer:  --Our small wheat, which went into the winter in a similar condition to most of the other WW in the area came out of the winter in better condition.  Ours came out of the winter growing, while most of the crops around us did not (and in some cases, have not), --why?  With a relatively open winter and significant rainfall, it was expected that N would have converted and leached down into the 2-3-4 foot level of the profile.  Most of the little wheat in the area acted as if that were the case.  Ours did not, --why?   I can only assume that our years of no-till played a role; however, our soil tests don't show the qualities that would lead to that conclusion.  Recent discussion with Dave Huggin's from WSU, reinforces my belief that there is a lot about soil tests and their interpretation that we don't understand for soils in our environment.  The biological tests I have taken show our soils in poor condition including it's structure; however, the Slake test shows great aggregate stability from our years of no-tilling.  Experience has shown me that our infiltration is much better, than the soils around me that are conventionally tilled.  Other than the Feb. 2014 thaw, we have had no water leave our fields for years, while the conventional tilled fields regularly have water running down the slopes and into the ditches during storm or winter events.  There is something going on here that is not explained by our normally accepted testing procedures.

AUSTRIAN WINTER PEAS (WP):

[Update: May 13]  We are applying Bassagran on the WP field that will be harvested.  Jim Hill Mustard has bolted and blooming.  A few purple winter pea blossoms are showing on the south exposures.  Our earlier application of Select II for grass weeds did not work well on the borders.  Downey Brome will be with us in the next crop.  The Rattail Fescue under the CRP, eyebrows and some area on our borders was missed as well.  Next year we will post seed/pre emerge Sharpen and Tricor 4F for weed control.  I have spotted two areas damaged from a cold night at the end of April.  Neither weeds or WP's have regrown.  Because of the poor growth of  the mustards, I have some concern there may be chemistry reaction rather than frost.

      We seeded WP (winter peas) last November in what was termed dormant seeding.  You want them seeded deep.  Austrians are a dark speckled little thing and I found them difficult to locate in all the duff.  The ones I did find were much shallower than our intended 2-3" which was cause for worry.  Our understanding at the time was that the peas needed to break germ before freeze up, but not emerge before spring.  We seeded them at 100#/ac.  They came up thick this spring.  For insurance purposes, since they were seeded beyond the closing date last fall, we had to have the stand evaluated to qualify for insurance.  The count was 3 times more than needed and were calculated at 4200#/ac for yield (under perfect growing conditions).

       The Austrians on SW stubble look great with few weeds.  The Austrians planted into garb ground  are not salvageable.  Between volunteer garbs and a heavy population of several varieties of wild mustard, those acres will not go to harvest.  They were reevaluated by the insurance company so that we could destroy the stand prior to harvest.  Our understanding of how the insurance works is, --since we applied for insurance and the stand was accepted we will pay the premium on all the planted acres.  The yield was recalculated showing the garb ground had the potential of ≈2100#/ac.  At harvest this yield calculation will be added to the harvested amount for yield history.  We now are free to do whatever we wish for those garb/austrian acres but those acres will not be eligible for insurance in 2016.  The garbs are starting to bloom, and the austrians are in the thirteenth node, standing about 6-8 inches.  Both legumes are forming an abundance of root nodules.  What to do???  Our current thought is to manage the acres as a cover crop.  We have a fair diversity of plant material, --garbs, peas, and several varieties of mustards that are rooting deep in great abundance.  There is some dog fennel, a few fiddle neck tar weed, some lambs quarter, some prostrate knotweed, very few russian thistle, some china lettuce, and few if any grass plants.  We don't want the weeds to seed out, nor the peas to go beyond early podding for maximum N development.  Since this acreage is planned for a spring cereal in 2017, we are not concerned about the required destruction by June 1st for summer fallow yield protection for 2017 WW.  Current thought is to max N development from peas and garbs.  If weed development comes on faster than the legumes we'll mow the acreage and manage for the regrowth.  If the legumes reach the proper stage prior to the weeds, we'll apply chemical and hold as CF until spring of 2017.  These acres won't look pretty because we will leave the residue stand.  We're hoping to have a mat of pea vine but the austrians appear to be growing slowly.  We had a frosty night a few days ago and the top node of the peas turned yellow, slowing them up.  The wild mustards are having a banner year.  Since we have been killing them for 100 years and the population doesn't seem to decrease, I'm not worried about them developing some seed.  They are easy to kill in any grass type crop. 

       SURPRISES:  ---after years of clean CF through timely applications of Rt3 and Valor, and having clean appearing grain crops, mustards have populated most of the garb/austrian ground with high populations. Russian thistles and china lettuce, although present, have a very low population.  That's a testament for using Valor in the fall to combat those two aggressive weed species.   ---grassy weeds are nearly nonexistent, showing that grass control chemistry for our broadleaf crops are killers, not suppressors.  Our past rotations with only small grains and CF, Downy Brome was always present in yield depressing amounts.   ---the number of billy beans (garbs) that took root and grew this spring.  Weeds are problematic, but we have chemicals, swathers, and pickup heads for harvesting that type of contamination; however, billy beans are a "grade issue" that is not manageable.  Even if they didn't mature with the peas, it's feared many would end up in the grain bin.  I don't think they would have rooted if there was good surface cover.
       With the next WP crop we will want to consider putting down Tricore 4F following the seeding for broadleaf weed control and maybe the Sharpen as well.

DARK NORTHERN SPRING (DNS) & SPRING BARLEY (SB):       

      Our DNS and SB both have great stands.  They are not perfect.  There are breaks in the rows in places, but mostly the wheat and barley emerged rapidly without winding it's way to the surface.  The stands look pretty much like soldiers shoulder to shoulder on parade,  --straight cotyledons, even color, even height, even fill.  It's difficult to tell how even the stand is from a distance because of the color differences and reflection off the residue.  We seed between 1.5 and 2" deep.  Standing stubble gives us less trouble drilling than stubble laying down.  Stubble  firmly attached to the ground is the easiest regardless of the volume.  Loose or rotted stubble will, on occasion, catch on the spring plate of the blade and drag, causing a pile.  We have a few of these in some of the fields.  They are unsightly.  We'll eliminate most of them over time as we gain experience on setting the drill for the field condition.  We are trending to the long blades for both sides of the disc.  They allow us the most space between the ground and the spring plate when we go for depth.  Currently CS doesn't provide a long blade for the left side with a fertilizer tube.  We hope that becomes available soon.

MUSTARD (M):

      Mustard was seeded next and it has taken longer to see the stand establishment than I expected.  We seeded about 6#/a.  We couldn't find any of the seed except at the opener when stopped.  We trusted that the CS put the seed where we wanted it.  It did.   The bare ground (truck roads, ridges) showed early, while the heavy residue (90u WW stubble) took longer to show.  Stand is good, measuring 6 plants per foot of row on 10" row spacing.  It's not as even a stand as I would like (void, then clump of seedlings).  The plants are not standing like soldiers in line, shoulder to shoulder as with the wheat and barley.  Unless we put a planter together with it's singulation capability, this is probably what we have.

SPRING PEAS (SP):

     Spring Stand Up Peas were the last crop seeded.  Seeded 160#/ac.  Excellent stand in heavy residue.  We applied Sharpen and Tricor 4F, as a premerg application for weed control.

      

(??) MAKING A SILK PURSE FROM A SOWS EAR

Summary:  Cropping a broadleaf behind a broadleaf is problematic if grain is the expected end product.

Background:   Last fall we wanted to even out field acres.  To do this we had to put winter peas (WP) on Billy Bean (Garb) ground.  The remainder(majority) of the WP was put on DNS ground.  The stripper headed bean ground had very light residue, and the stripper headed DNS ground had reasonably heavy residue.
        The ground had little or no weed/volunteer growth when we applied 20oz/ac of Rt3, late October.  We dormant seeded the Austrian WP on the second week of November, placing them ≈2.5" deep.  Freeze up occurred a couple of weeks later.  The information from the breeder was to get the peas to break germ but not emerge until early spring.  Our timing was apparently good, because this spring we had three times the population to qualify for a successful stand, and no weedy cultivars were present.  When temperatures warmed, the weeds and volunteer came big time in the garb ground, but the DNS ground remainder relatively clean.  The only broadleaf chemistry we can apply to the WP is Basagran and that does not have a good reputation. There is good grassy weed chemistry for WP.  A couple of cold nights set the WP back allowing the weed species to become more competitive.
       The pic below shows the WP on the garb ground.  The WP are topped by mustards.  The RCIS evaluated the stand the other day and came up with a projected yield of 2100# if all the stars line up right.  All you can make out in this pic are black mustard and jim hill mustard.  Neither cultivar do we see anymore in our small grain crops, but they waited for a screwed up rotation like this to show their ugly head.  The real problem with this crop though is not the weeds, but the surprising number of garbs that germinated and rooted.  The fear of our supplier is that the garbs will foul the grades making them non-marketable other than feed.  If there had been a good mat of residue I don't think these garbs could have survived long enough to root down.

         The pic below shows our WP crop on DNS ground.  It has good residue cover that includes DNS stubble and the previous WW stubble.  The CrossSlot drill has had a low impact on the stubble, other than laying it over.  If the stars all lineup, this field still holds the potential of 4200#/ac.

SO, HOW DO WE MAKE SOMETHING POSITIVE FROM THIS!

         The WP on garb ground will not go to harvest, --so, what to do??  We could still destroy and reseed to a C4 plant like millet or milo.  We could CF the field, however, the next scheduled crop is in the spring of 2017.  We could manage the field as a cover crop (green fallow).

        We have decided to manage this field as a cover crop, but instead of destroying this mess and seeding cultivars normally associated with cover crops we are going to utilize what's already growing.  ( 6/26/19 update: --After re-reading this post I find that this is not what actually occurred.  Kye couldn't stand this mess so we roundup the field and seeded a 9 cultivar cover crop mix that included --2 canola, 2 mustard, 2 clover, 2 radish and one vetch.  This grew to maturity and was seeded to winter wheat.  The winter wheat emerged but was very small the following spring.  The notable part of this was that I found no noticeable runoff from that field, where our CF field did have runoff.  Our rotation for this field changed at this point.  I'm leaving the remainder of this post more as a "what if".  We may have been able to accomplish a similar result without the expense of seeding the cover crop mix.)  The next regular cash crop will be either spring wheat or spring barley.  None of the weed species currently growing, (primarily black mustard and jim hill mustard, along with a smattering of fiddle neck tarweed, prostrate pigweed, russian thistle, and china lettuce), offer any real challenge for the herbicides we use on spring cereals.  This field has a long history of high populations of grassy weeds (primarily downey brome), but fortunately, following the garb crop I have found NO grassy weeds other than a few plants of rattail fescue.  Chemistry for grassy weeds in a broadleaf crop are killers, -- not suppressors like those available for small grains.  This is a very good reason to incorporate a legume or brassica in the rotation, --removing grassy weed competition.

       Our Reasoning: (for keeping this mess).  WP, with our high population will grow a lot of biomass.  I expect the vines to reach 12 feet long and stand 3 feet or more in height.  Both the WP and garbs are nodulating well, so, we are growing N.  The mustards, which is the primary weed species, are growing long taproots (already slender tubers are 12+inches, and will continue to grow for some time.  They will add significant amount of biomass along with the WP.  We'll watch to see if one suppresses the growth of the other.

         Our goal for this field is: grow biomass, grow N, keep live roots for as long as possible.

---bio mass for surface protection and critter food (worm, and others).

---N for the following grain crop.  (hopefully we can find a way to successfully test for it)

---live roots for making critter food, and boring holes to allow moisture infiltration later.  

         How to manage from this point on (????).

---We'll plan to terminate at full bloom or early pod set to maximize the N.  When pods start setting, N is moved from the root nodules to the leaves and eventually in to the pea.  (I have to learn more).

??-- can we mow or crush, setting back the podding, allowing the WP to continue building N?

??-- will we need to seed into this mat to extend the cover crop through the winter?

Residue & Wind

           The fall of 2015 we had several wind events of short duration where winds gusted to 30, 40 and 50mph, depending on the event.  I never gave much thought to it at the time; however, this spring it was a shock to see a couple of bare areas on SE slopes.
           This field started out with good standing cover of stripper headed spring barley that was chem fallowed, and seeded to WW around September 20th of 2015.  We missed the moisture so much of the field did not emerge until late October or early November.  This is a scene similar to what I experienced 30 years ago, in this same field,  when I mistakenly thought that it was good to mow standing stubble early in the season for ground cover.  it didn't take a lot of wind to deposit residue drifts up to a foot deep on our NE facing slopes at the time.  Only once did I make that mistake.  After that, I mowed a short time prior to seeding, leaving standing stubble most of the fallow year.  We needed to shorten the stubble to minimize problems drilling.

        The pic below shows where I chopped a hole in the packed residue drift.  The drift was  4" deep and very dense packed.  It was easy to cut this hole with my hand tool.  Walking on this was like walking on a firm sponge.  Very few WW cultivars emerge through this dense, deep mat.  As may be expected the soil surface was very damp.  Soil was cool but not cold, --probably in the low 60's.

       The pic below shows a WW plant that made it through this dense residue pack.   Close up shows that the plant received light nearly to the ground level.  I don't have a clue as to why a few cultivars emerged where the vast majority did not.

  

Hopefully, we won't have a repeat of these wind events for years to come.  One event in late November dropped our cast iron flag pole my grandfather put up over 100 years ago.  Winds topped 50mph.  Very little damage was noted except for the flag pole.

HAIR PINNING RESIDUE

Some would say that this crop is in trouble with all the hair pinned stubble showing in the seed rows.  

The pic above shows hair pinning of residue in the seed slot left by our CrossSlot drill.  This is normal with any disc opener whether it is a double or single disc. The difference in the CrossSlot is in  the placement of the seed.  With the CrossSlot the disc punches the residue (some of it is cut in the process, and the remainder pushed down in the traditional hairpin manner) to the bottom of the disc; however, the seed is not nestled in the hair pinned residue, but resides outside of the residue on a shelf surrounded by good earth.  The design of the packer wheels (shape, angle, and position) close the slot firmly without packing directly over the slot leaving an area of low resistance for the new cotyledon.   By adding residue to the slot, still lower resistance can be acquired and seed (large and small) can be emerged from deeper in the soil profile than would normally seem prudent.  With this being said, I am convinced that failed stands are more likely to happen by seeding too shallow, rather than seeding too deep.  This of course is contingent on the technology built into this opener not being compromised which impacts the integrity of the slot.

Pic's above show emerged stand of mustard in rows that appear to be hair pinned.  We're very pleased with the population that averages 6 plants per lineal foot on 10" row spacing.  The seeding rate was 5.5 pounds per acre.  We have had little or no moisture since seeding and under the residue the surface of the ground is very damp.  Exposed ground is showing drying condition.