TOO TOUGH TO SEED --(??)

      What a disappointment to have this outfit on our property.  The only thing good about this is that they came quickly and sucked up acres fast with three swathers and four balers.    They wanted this long (stripper headed) straw.  When the main field was baled, they estimated 3000#/a.  We are getting $10/t, but that's about a third to a half of the value of the nutrients that we are losing through this removal process, plus the loss of carbon from the removed residue.  We will have to put up with stacks of bales for 90 days while they age and ready for the mushroom industry.  A constant reminder of failure.

This was an extra ordinary year in many aspects.  Generally, this year, the spring crops were good to excellent for potential.  The late spring start ended up with a late harvest for many operators.  Even though most everyone has crop insurance, this is not going to be a good year for those that still have crop to harvest (now it is moving into the latter half of October).  There are thousands of acres of garbs, spring wheat, and even some winter wheat still in the field.  In my 65 years of being in the field I don't remember ever seeing harvest in this area this late.  Our spring wheat crop averaged ~65b/a, with a range of 40-130b/a across the fields.  Even the heavy high yielding areas, as pictured here, only produced  ~ 4k#/a residue, which is nothing compared to the 20k#+/a that we had successfully drilled with the CrossSlot, the spring of 2014.  We never expected to have any trouble drilling into this residue, but after several fitful days of adjustment, and even putting all new coulters on the drill, we admitted defeat and looked at alternatives, --either bale or fire.  We chose bale, as the lessor of two evils.  Fire, although the ground and surface residue was damp, may have caused more damage by burning into the soil where partially decayed residue resided.  Cultivation was never considered due to it's lasting destructive effect on soil health.  We are too far along the path to a healthy soil to revert back to that destructive practice.
     WHY ARE WE HAVING THIS TROUBLE?   We were convinced the CrossSlot was a foolproof drill capable of drilling any field condition where crops are grown without any field preparation?  One caveat we knew was that the residue needed to be dry so the notched coulter could cut at least most of the residue it encountered.  This residue appeared dry, but it was tough.  My serrated clipper struggled cutting the residue at ground level, and you could ring a shock of stubble in your hands and not break it apart.  Our rational then became, --we had never drilled into spring or winter wheat stubble that had not first gone through a winter, hence, some decomposition had taken place prior to any attempt to seed into the residue.
     THEN CAME ANOTHER SURPRISE!  The pic above is part of a 3ac, three cornered patch that was not baled.  This was one of our higher yielding areas.  The day after the remainder of the field was swathed and baled, Kye was able to drill this patch without any issues,--WHY???  The simple answer is: --The residue became cut-able!  Time had given us enough dry days to lower humidity to the point the residue could be broke apart.
     Well, we lost this years residue on these fields but it is worth the knowledge gained, being,--one, we don't necessarily have to wait for wheat stubble to deteriorate by going through a winter, and, two,  it was once again shown that the CrossSlot needs dry residue to be successful.
     What a whiplash this past week has been, --going from no expectation of trouble, to a revelation that we can't seed this field, and back to OK, it's seeding just fine.
   

MAN and CLIMATE

    I have been skeptical about man being able to influence the climate, but I have become a believer.  Increasing atmospheric CO2 and NO3 levels are just a part of what I see as being influenced by man.  Desertification appears to me to be a bigger problem, and we, in the worldwide agricultural community, are a major part of the problem, -- along with the spatial needs generated by 7.9 billion people.  (In my lifetime world population has more than tripled from 2.2b)
 
      The earth's climate is dynamic, changing continually.  Natural cycles resulting from the earth's tilt, relationship to other planets, their orbits, and earth's position to the all important sun and our moon, have powerful influence on the earth's climate.  Thirty years of lecturing by Dr. Art Douglas has left no doubt in my mind on the importance of these cycles.
      Our use of fossil fuels probably is contributing to CO2 buildup that so many are claiming to be the major cause of climate change.   It's the goto energy source for 7.9b people with an infrastructure that gradually developed over more than a 100 years, and we probably ought to change, --but to what?  I hope I'm wrong but it seems that we have taken a hiatus on working out the problems with fusion reaction, and  fission waste disposal is a nasty issue.  I view wind power  as nothing more than a scam, a money pit that has fleeced the public.  It is horribly inefficient, extremely high maintenance, and a low life expectancy (It was recently reported that 20yrs is current expectation, down from the original 50yrs), and the eventual removal of these dinosaurs will be equally expensive as when they were installed.  Solar Energy holds a lot of potential.  It is something that can be built into building construction, and not rely total on huge solar farms.  There is also geothermal, wave action, hydrogen fuel cell technology that can be improved and brought into the mix, and, who knows what new technologies the future will hold.
      Recently, all the information I access that relates to soil health makes reference to "taking cues from nature in developing farming practices", or "work with nature, not against it".  In my striving to learn about soil health I ran across a presentation that was intriguing.  It gave a pretty impressive picture and narrative on global desertification and it's implication.  DESERTIFICATION by Allen Savory.  The pic in this post is from that presentation.  Notice the light colored areas contrasted with the green areas.  The light colored areas are associated with "desertification".  The more I watch this video the more connected I become with the message.  The reasoning behind our operations move to a ULD farming system is incorporated in Allen Savory's message, but he goes farther.  Being a grain producer, I'm resisting the introduction of livestock into our operation; however, I understand the reasoning, their potential, and it's possible they will show up on our operation sometime in the future.

      My statement above, about agriculture worldwide being part of the problem stems from the fact that in any given year we leave a lot of ground in a nonproductive state that is radiating energy instead of capturing energy and converting it through photosynthesis to a crop.  Our practice of fallowing is an example of a poor land management practice.  The global increase of wild fires, along with the ever increasing number of people and their related spacial needs, are factors that influence desertification.  These man caused influences are gradually changing air currents related to high and low air cells across the globe, concentrating energy.  This concentrated energy is effecting the strength and location of storms.  Each of us, with our relatively small farming operation think that we are insignificant, so, what we do will not have any effect on the climate.  I'm beginning to realize that the mismanagement of our tiny amount of global resource combined with millions of other independent operations doing the same thing adds up to be a huge potential impact.  We need to rethink our attitude on how we manage our land so as to make a positive contribution to sequestering carbon, and reducing practices that promote desertification!!

 

SPRING SEEDING 2018

<--Last year our spring Canola never had this much color, --and our yield reflected the fact.  Last year, three weeks of +/- 100 degree heat beat up all spring crops in the area and caught our canola at the start of bloom.
       This pic shows a week of bloom.  It appears to take about a week to reach maximum color. Hopefully we will see this for another couple of weeks (or more).

    This spring we seeded spring canola, and a field with a cover crop mix.  No other spring crop was drilled, neither cereal or legume.   At SJ/Ewan we seeded canola at 5#/a on 10" rows @ ≥1" and Thornton we seeded 5#/a on 10" @≤1" depth with the CrossSlot drill.  The cultivar was a HighClass RR variety so that we could get another whack at Rattail Fescue and Downy Brome with Roundup.
   Early Field evaluation:
       In general, it appears that 5#/a provides  a high population, --good/bad(?)
       We have holes in the stand.  The small in-row holes are likely do to the low seeding rate of a very small seed metered through our old valmar air delivery system.  Any motion or attitude change of the drill will cause slight deceleration or acceleration of seed delivery with this type metering system.  
        The Large holes involving several openers or the whole drill width are a different story.  The tall heavy residue is playing a part.  Scouting and evaluating the canola stand the past 2-3 weeks have led us to the conclusion that we should leave a seeded field with the residue flat on the ground, and seed no shallower than 1.25".  The canola stand at SJ/Ewan is very good, but Thornton is a different story.  There are a lot of holes.  There are plants struggling through tangled, half height  residue, and areas where the seed didn't get into the ground sufficiently.  Thornton fields were wet and cold.  We shallowed up the seeding depth and reduced opener down pressure, --a mistake!  When we think back over the years of planting with the CrossSlot, we have never had a problem of emerging a crop from seeding too deep, --the problems, when developed,  have always been from seeding too shallow.  
        The technology developed in the CrossSlot opener has the ability to emerge a crop from greater depths than is normally acceptable under the "conditions", but it is difficult to break the mindset of shallowing up seeding depth with cold wet soil.  With a "seasoned" field (one with years of low disturbance no-till), which we have, water drains rapidly, --and the soil warms quickly when disturbed in the drilling process.

<--This pic shows a Thornton field with tall, heavy residue. You can see holes in the stand, which, unfortunately, there are many.  At first we thought it may be chemistry since this is an area that had an abundance of Canadian Thistle.  It turns out to be that the seed was placed too shallow, or the mat to thick.  That's easily corrected for another year, --set the drill a little deeper and apply a little more down pressure.
    The Flea Beetle has been a problem in some fields but we don't see any evidence of that pest.  One symptom of their presence is where they severe cotyledons leaving bare patches in the field.  Cold, damp, slow growing conditions favor that type damage.  

<--This pic, taken earlier, shows the visual difference between tall, heavy residue in the background and no residue in the foreground.
The canola in the background looks rough, but it actually is a good stand.  In a week or two,  I'll add a pic from this same location. 
      The lack of residue in the foreground  makes the field look a lot better, --but I think it is only visual.  This piece (foreground) is new to us, very wet, never direct seeded.  This area had some standing water when we did our preplant Roundup application, but we were able to drill it without difficulty. 
      At SJ we also have ~50a where we replaced our regular fertility with fish, sea salt, humid acid.  We're participating with a group to learn more about "biologicals".  I think I've called these "snake oil" in the past.  I'll address our experience with this later in another post.  At this point in time it isn't impressive, --we'll see.

<--[Update: 6/27 pic]  The same area as above with canola in full bloom.   This pic is zoomed out further.  Both the foreground and background looks very good.  We have experienced good weather for the canola bloom this year.  Some areas on the plants are showing evidence of some cold nights.
     Unfortunately there are two other fields that don't look this good.  Recent evaluation of these fields haven't changed our earlier conclusion, --seeded to shallow for the amount of residue that exists on some of the areas.  Canola doesn't like wet feet, but this condition was short lived as other wet areas with good stands attest.

    Evaluating the Cover Crop field:  I updated the "Cover Crop" page to reflect what has been done for the spring of 2018.  Another update will be added when we decide how and when we will terminate the stand.
                 

STEWARDING OUR SOILS

This post is an update on our progress to improve the health of the soils we steward.
      Ten years ago we were still trying to stop water erosion after nearly 20 years of actively working the problem, and soil health was a general term without specifics.  Today, we have stopped ~95% of erosion by water, and have an idea on how to stop another ~4%, --I'm leaving ~1% as uncontrollable at this point.  We are now hearing more of a consensus of what Soil Health means, --it turns out to be multi-faceted.  For us, Soil Health breaks down too four basic elements, --1) maintain surface residue, 2) minimize soil disturbance,  3) diversify crops, 4) keep a live root growing as long as possible during the year.  Working to maximize these four elements will hopefully remove soil erosion, build soil structure, feed the biota, build SOM that will result in improved soil health.
                                                 WHERE ARE WE TODAY:

 The pic on the left:  --2006 WW seeded on CF following SB.  We were using a high disturbance hoe drill, and you can see a lot of exposed soil.  Along with WW we were inadvertently planting weed seed that existed as well.  With the exposed soil and impressions left by the hoe, the field was vulnerable to soil erosion going into winter. 

 The pic on the left:  --2015 WW seeded on SP stubble.  We have progressed from high disturbance no-till to ultra-low disturbance(ULD) no-till through the use of the stripper header and the CrossSlot drill.  We have enough residue on the ground that you see no dirt.  In our environment with high summer temperatures, freezing winter temperatures, and most of our moisture coming during the winter(~15"), it's important to conserve as much of our rainfall as possible by increasing percolation and moderating our near surface soil temperatures.  The ULD system does this better than any other system out there.  The system also reduces erosion from the common forces of wind, water and tillage to near zero.
 More detail on the four basic elements mentioned above:
        --RESIDUE:   The need to maintain 100%+ surface cover (a good gauge is that if you see dirt you need more residue).  Unfortunately our most vulnerable ground still has some dirt exposed.  Residue protects the soil surface from the destructive forces of the raindrop which helps prevent surface sealing, and slows water movement. Surface residue moderates soil temperature.  In the summer we have measured ≥20 degrees cooler temperatures under the residue compared to bare soil. This is a definite moisture saver.  It slows the replacement rate of the boundary layer (the 100% humidity zone at the soil surface).  In the winter, soils remain 2-4 degrees warmer than bare soil.  When we do our spring seeding, seed zone temperature lags about three days behind bare cultivated soil.  We find that insignificant when compared to the benefits. 
         --TILLAGE:  We have decreased soil surface disturbance to the absolute minimum.  This maximizes residue retention, and maximizes channeling from worm activity, and decayed root structure, which continue to build over time.  Those channels help reduce the time our soils stay in a water saturated (anaerobic) state, and that in turn, reduces the buildup of various pathogens, and conditions that negatively impact our cash crops.

  ---Another benefit from maximizing residue retention and minimizing soil disturbance is less weed pressure.  Minimum soil disturbance combined with heavy residue leaves a very hostile environment for any cultivar to get a start.  If you enlarge the pic at the left you can clearly see that disturbed ground, even if it is only a wheel track encourages weed growth. The undisturbed areas do have some growing cultivars, but the number is significantly less and tend to be spots with the least or no residue.   Also, maximizing residue retention and minimizing soil disturbance makes for faster water percolation into the lower soil profile.  This drys the soil surface faster reducing compaction from heavy equipment during early spring seeding.    

      --CROP DIVERSITY:  We have started to stretch our cropping system to include winter wheat, spring wheat, spring  barley, billy beans,mustard, canola, winter and spring peas.  The rotation is dynamic (meaning no particular crop following a particular crop).  More crops may be added to the mix in the future like soybeans, sunflower, millet, and sorghum.  Crop diversity along with a dynamic rotation is being used  to address weed and disease issues as they become evident.  A mono-culture crop promotes certain weed types, --downy brome in winter wheat is an example.  Crop diversity allows us to use herbicides with different modes of action.  This will lengthen the useful life of the chemistry available to us by lengthening out the time when weed species develop resistance to a specific herbicide.  Keep in mind that we haven't had a herbicide with a new "mode of action" marketed for 30 years, and there is none currently in the pipeline.  Crop diversity helps improve soil health through the root exudes.  The more variety of cultivars we can get into the rotation the better for the soil biota as well.

       --LIVING ROOTS:  The biggest challenge for us will be lengthening the time we keep living roots in the soil during the year.  Research is showing this to be a major factor in feeding soil biota and increasing SOM.  Currently we use CF in front of our WW.  In our arid environment that has to change to make a positive increase in SOM.  Currently we are bumbling along, doing a variety of things that are not well understood or coordinated.  Last spring we attempted to establish a ~30ac perma-cover with White Dutch Clover.  That has failed, but we will try again this fall.   We do have a ~70ac field that we have replaced CF with green fallow (GF).  This spring we will be seeding the GF which will include lentils, forage peas, forage oats, and radish and dutch white clover.  This is the second rotation of GF on this field.  Unlike the past we plan to terminate the CC at the high N production cycle instead of letting the cover continue through maturity.  How we terminate is yet to be decided.  This fall (2018) we will seed this field to WW.
      --Soil Biota:  In 2015 we took soil samples of the 70ac field and sent them to Earthfort Labs in Corvallis, OR.  We plan to retake those tests in 2020 for comparison. The early tests (more detailed in an earlier post) showed we were very high in bacteria, very low in fungi, flagellates, ameba, and beneficial nematodes.  Fortunately we were also low in ciliates, and harmful nematodes.  The low fungi count along with the high bacteria count is the natural occurrence from a history of raising only  grass cultivars, which are bacteria dominate.  I'm reading where healthy soils have a Fungi/Bacteria ration ~1/1 which requires raising higher secession plants.  We are no where near that ratio.  There is no history of higher cessation plants like brassicas or pulses, that support fungi on that ground.  The Earthfort report summary stated that the biota needed food.  We have to figure out whether we can buildup the fungi numbers from the remanent we have or whether we need to add inoculant of fungi and support them with higher cessation plants.  Also, can we successfully feed the biota with biological amendments, --there are several available from a variety of sources.  Currently we are riding a train that is accelerating down the track in the use of commercial inputs.  The only hope to reverse this trend is to increase our knowledge of what makes a healthy soil, and apply that knowledge.  There is evidence that this can be done.  How do WE do it in our specific climate/environment is the question.

GROWING A CROP IN TALL STANDING STUBBLE

   

Last spring-----As I watch our spring canola grow, the question that keeps nagging at me is 'is the standing stubble interfering with the growth of the canola (and other crops).  Most of the winter wheat stubble is laid flat, but there are areas where our drill leaves some stubble standing.  I have observed that spring wheat growing up through winter wheat stubble appears to grow taller in the early stages and tillers less.  When I mentioned this to Dwayne Beck his comment was "yes, and that's fine.  I don't want tillering of spring cereals".   Crop maturity is extended 7-10 days for each tiller.  One or two tillers may add to the yield, but, more will likely degrade your crop.  They take moisture and nutrients from the main stem if there is a shortage of either or the summer heat forces maturity.
     This fall-----It appears that tall tangled residue does hinder canola branch development.  Canola plants in very tall stubble with some of the stems lodged was observed with less branching and fewer and mispositioned leaves.  Normal harvest height using a sickle bar appears to have little impact.

Residue protects the field

This post has sat as a draft for more than a month.  It has enough information that I decided to finish and publish rather than delete.  It's been a unique year.  I could visually compare--(heavy residue vs no residue, contour seeding vs vertical seeding)

     In February I scouted our winter wheat fields mostly for erosion, and comparing drilling patterns and ground cover.  It was consistent across the region, --on our fields as well as the neighbors.  This year, all of our winter wheat is planted on either, spring or winter pea stubble.  One field has full ground cover and the other has a lot of dirt showing.   There are so many potential variables(slope, aspect, micro-climates, etc), that frequently it is difficult to see a consistent pattern.  This year was different because of the type of winter.  Most of the region received about the same weather over a long period of time.  The whole region experienced abnormally high rain and snow fall this winter. Erosion followed the book where direct seeding showed significantly less erosion than cultivated fields.   Also, the more  surface cover, the less the erosion in direct seeded fields.  

This pic shows early drying of an eroded field.  The "sponge" top soil has been eroded off the ridges and well down the slope.  The dark areas are still showing surface moisture that hasn't evaporated off yet.  These areas are benefiting from water moving from the low water holding capacity areas of the field along with the fact these areas probably have more OM (sponge layer).  There is no surface protection on this field.  

This picture shows two different fields.  The typical cultivated field is at the top the picture,  and a direct seeded field at the bottom.  The aspect is north and the pic shows where deep snow drifts lingered in both fields.  The field at the top had no surface cover other than a nice stand of small wheat.  The field in the lower part of the picture had enough residue (wheat and pea) that very little dirt could be seen and was seeded with a cross-slot drill.  The lower field did not have visible soil erosion, but it did lose water.

This picture shows the amount and type of residue that is protecting the soil surface of the direct seeded field pictured above.  This is a combination of winter wheat and spring pea stubble.  This year, our heavy residue fields are showing rodent damage where the drill left piles.  It appears that those areas are recovering.  We have seen this once in the past where piles of loose straw sheltered rodents under the snow.

This picture shows a winter wheat field on winter pea ground.  This field had two years of low residue and seeded late to winter wheat.  The field history was (chem fallow seeded to winter canola that failed, then seeded to spring wheat, then dormant seeded to winter peas, and now seeded very late, do to the fall rains, to winter wheat). It looks like there is no crop, but the crop  has come through fine.  Even though we use a ULD system and have direct seeded for 20+ years,  if there is little or no cover on the ground there will be visual erosion.  Seeding vertical down the slope accentuates the issue. This field also shows the value of seeding on the contour rather than vertically.  The extreme left side of the picture shows the contrast between contoured and vertical seeding.  The contoured seeding had some soil movement, but you have to look closely to detect it.  Most of the field had some cover.  The corners with multiple tractor/drill passes (as shown above) were the most vulnerable areas.  This area has very light soils and regularly gets beat up with any field operation.