Decompaction

[SilliamWhale]

I think if you leave land alone it naturally decompacts rather compacts.

Drilling wheat into bean land some of which in the spring was tight from sheep. Its nice now

 

[shakerator]

I think if you leave land alone it naturally decompacts rather compacts.

Drilling wheat into bean land some of which in the spring was tight from sheep. Its nice now

If you let it regenerate yes. If you roundup any greening up more difficult but possibly still yes

If you roundup and apply a stacked pre em killing all developing root mass/ seeds in top 10mm, then no !

 

[Simon C]

If you let it regenerate yes. If you roundup any greening up more difficult but possibly still yes

If you roundup and apply a stacked pre em killing all developing root mass/ seeds in top 10mm, then no !

This may be true but if you have been at it for as long as me, then your land will become uncompactable and it doesn't matter what you do to it; except cultivate it, of course.

Completely agree with Will though.

 

[shakerator]

This may be true but if you have been at it for as long as me, then your land will become uncompactable and it doesn't matter what you do to it; except cultivate it, of course.

Completely agree with Will though.

How long now @Simon C

 

[Fred]

This may be true but if you have been at it for as long as me, then your land will become uncompactable and it doesn't matter what you do to it; except cultivate it, of course.

Completely agree with Will though.

Yes but how long does it take , most of the Strip till boys round here have given up or changed to prior cultivation ,

 

[DrWazzock]

I think it all depends on the type of clay you have.

here we have some solid blue clay down to about 5 feet. Under that there is sand. There is no stone of calciferous materil in the clay and from what I can see it would be excellent for making pottery.

It is underdrained with porous fill, drains every 11 yards rather than the standard 22 yards.

The problem we have is what I would describe as ponding. Water tends to run into low spots, sediments and slumps the clay and seals the porous fill. Once this happens you get a "bald patch" less roots, less infiltration until after a few wet winters you end up with a pond, unless you rip it across the drains and porous fill, when it recovers and crops well.

We can't mole, as over a lot of the field sand is predominant, from depth right up to the surface.

Maybe deep rooting aggressive plants would eventually help it self structure and drain but in the meantime it needs help of some sort, unless it is to revert to its natural pond like state. Most clays were the bottom of prehistoric lagoons.

 

[Richard III]

Yes but how long does it take , most of the Strip till boys round here have given up or changed to prior cultivation ,

Surely you can never truly get there with strip till? Your loosening some ground every year, so it can then slump due to rain and compact with future machinery passes.

Doesn't Rolf Derpsch say that No Till soils continue to improve for the first 20 years? The biggest improvements are in the first few years though IMO.

 

[Badshot]

I think it all depends on the type of clay you have.

here we have some solid blue clay down to about 5 feet. Under that there is sand. There is no stone of calciferous materil in the clay and from what I can see it would be excellent for making pottery.

It is underdrained with porous fill, drains every 11 yards rather than the standard 22 yards.

The problem we have is what I would describe as ponding. Water tends to run into low spots, sediments and slumps the clay and seals the porous fill. Once this happens you get a "bald patch" less roots, less infiltration until after a few wet winters you end up with a pond, unless you rip it across the drains and porous fill, when it recovers and crops well.

We can't mole, as over a lot of the field sand is predominant, from depth right up to the surface.

Maybe deep rooting aggressive plants would eventually help it self structure and drain but in the meantime it needs help of some sort, unless it is to revert to its natural pond like state. Most clays were the bottom of prehistoric lagoons.

I'd have thought moling would help. If you have drains every 11 yards even if some of the field didn't hold a mole the parts that need it would, and with drains so close the water hasn't far to go along the mole.

 

[Gormers]

I think it all depends on the type of clay you have.

here we have some solid blue clay down to about 5 feet. Under that there is sand. There is no stone of calciferous materil in the clay and from what I can see it would be excellent for making pottery.

It is underdrained with porous fill, drains every 11 yards rather than the standard 22 yards.

The problem we have is what I would describe as ponding. Water tends to run into low spots, sediments and slumps the clay and seals the porous fill. Once this happens you get a "bald patch" less roots, less infiltration until after a few wet winters you end up with a pond, unless you rip it across the drains and porous fill, when it recovers and crops well.

We can't mole, as over a lot of the field sand is predominant, from depth right up to the surface.

Maybe deep rooting aggressive plants would eventually help it self structure and drain but in the meantime it needs help of some sort, unless it is to revert to its natural pond like state. Most clays were the bottom of prehistoric lagoons.

Having farmed similar land the only ways I know to keep the soil structure open on heavy clay is to get plenty of organic matter into it, encourage worm activity, work it when bone dry or even fallow it. A clover ley also works well.
I know it's no help you ardent DD's but as DrWazzock knows it's hellish stuff to deal with, if it ain't fit to work keep off it.

 

[Simon C]

How long now @Simon C

Nine years now, I think. There are a few on here been doing much longer than me and they will confirm that every year it gets easier and better. Carlos Crovetto claims his soil is still improving after 40 years of no-till.

The only way to make it work is too leave the soil alone and let the biology build and do it's work of natural structuring. Any form of soil intervention will set you back to square one, so no subsoiling, ploughing, scratching about, or even strip tilling; they are all unnatural. And soil type is no excuse, I would be happy to take anyone on in "my soil is heavier than yours" competition, in fact farming heavy clay is the reason I started no-till in the first place.

 

[Jim Bullock]

Nine years now, I think. There are a few on here been doing much longer than me and they will confirm that every year it gets easier and better. Carlos Crovetto claims his soil is still improving after 40 years of no-till.

The only way to make it work is too leave the soil alone and let the biology build and do it's work of natural structuring. Any form of soil intervention will set you back to square one, so no subsoiling, ploughing, scratching about, or even strip tilling; they are all unnatural. And soil type is no excuse, I would be happy to take anyone on in "my soil is heavier than yours" competition, in fact farming heavy clay is the reason I started no-till in the first place.

We have owned a direct drill for 17 years and hired them in for several year prior to then. And yes our soils did improve and we were seeing all of the benefits that many of the contributors to this thread (and forum) have described. However the wheels fell of the wagon in 2007/2010 (wet late harvests) and again in 2012... If the weather goes against you have to press the re-set button and make some adjustments to your system. Rotation is essential if you are to be a successful no-tiller but if that is disrupted you might just have to do some cultivations to replace the benefits of a balanced rotation. We have been using cover crops since the mid eighties and they are only as good as the soil that they are planted into...its a total myth that by planting some expensive seed you are going to deal with all of your soil structure problems... plant a cover crop into a decent soil and you will see many benefits, but plant it into a compacted dead soil and it will be like any other crop.. it will not come up with the goods.
Our soils are not that as heavy as Simon C's but they contain high levels of silt which makes them run together in a wet year. The only land which we have managed to continuously direct drill over the last 18 years has been some of our heaviest, probably because it has a proper up-to-date drainage system.
I am 100% in favour of no-till/direct-drilling and all of the concepts surrounding Conservation Agriculture but it does worry me that some believe its going to the solution to all of their cropping problems... it's just a piece in the jig-saw..

 

[Richard III]

We have been using cover crops since the mid eighties and they are only as good as the soil that they are planted into...its a total myth that by planting some expensive seed you are going to deal with all of your soil structure problems... plant a cover crop into a decent soil and you will see many benefits, but plant it into a compacted dead soil and it will be like any other crop.. and not come up with the goods.

A very good point on cover crops Jim, and I don't think I've heard anyone else mention it before.

Are your soils suitable for moling Jim and if so, have you tried it? The technique doesn't seem popular round here, but I've tried some this spring, as a look see. It seems quite easy to get the water to go down in No Till, but not sideways in between drains on difficult land.

 

[Zebbedee]

As with any other form of tillage start with drains and lime imo

 

[Simon C]

Right then, here is an example of natural decompaction.

I have been struggling with this field for a few years now, always wet in the winter and crops didn't perform very well so I came to the conclusion that the land drains that Dad had put in in the 50s were now shot. Autumn 2013 I decided not to crop it and get it redrained. It started raining as they were unloading the trencher off the lorry and didn't stop for most of the winter. The drainers were here for six weeks, picking the odd dry day just to get 16 acres done.

This is the mess they left behind and how it sat all winter.

When it eventually dried up in April I moled it and leveled the spoil over the drains out a bit. I did briefly consider some sort of cultivation, subsoiler or even the dreaded plough but being a dedicated no-till zealot, I quickly realized that direct drilling was the only option. So straight in with the Moore Unidrill loaded with some linseed out of the bin and hey presto, a crop.

Second picture shows where I double drilled where I had leveled over the drains, this was pure clay form four feet down. On the left you can see where the stone cart left it's mark.

OK, so it wasn't a brilliant crop, only did about half a ton/acre, but the inseed did it's job of resurrecting the soil.

 

[Simon C]

Autumn 2014, stripped the linseed, bit of compost and straight in with the Bertini, wheat off the heap, 220 seeds/m2.
View attachment 221410

Can't find any photos of the crop in the Spring, but it looked great and yielded 10.6t/ha.
Drilled Triticale into high cut stubble last week, no looking back now.

 

[SilliamWhale]

Agreee with you again Simon. What is more I think farmers underestimate how little wheat especially cares about compaction.

Put it this way, who has had poor wheat crops this year that you can pinpoint as down to compaction from a lack of cultivations? (Jim B potentially notwithstanding).

On the point about cover crops not making a bad soil good I'm not sure I agree. A really good summer cover would do umpteen times the job of a late autumn 2" tall one. That said its nothing that a good combinable crop or forage should not be capable of either.

 

[SilliamWhale]

p.s. basically its soil respiration

 

[Dry Rot]

I read somewhere that putting a (10" for example) auger down through compacted soil where it ponds can cure it. Sounds logical, but does it work?

 

[SilliamWhale]

I read somewhere that putting a (10" for example) auger down through compacted soil where it ponds can cure it. Sounds logical, but does it work?

Lowering the water table in that spot you mean? Maybe.

 

[mikep]

It's really exactly the same as why some soils give 10 t and others a lot less. It's the soil composition that matters not the soil type. Heavy land is a broad term that covers completely differing soils. It's ratios of clay, silt, sand and calcium with minor others that make or break a soil. Ours is heavy land but differs so much from heavy land down the road in its composition. I have come to think that the stability of a soil depends more on the amount of silt and sand you have rather than clay. Sand as the larger particle helps prevent slumping but silt is very mobile and will run into small pores and clog them preventing percolation. We are blessed with 2-3% sand but 40% silt this means we can suffer from slumping that probably can be corrected naturally by worms et al but you would get very poor waiting. The only blessing of these soils is that you will never wear out a set of tyres they rot first and you get a lot of work out of metal, you probaly loose more from rusting overnight than work during the day. On these lands you must be flexible and if necessary be willing to give nature a nudge. Remember the soil has had millions of years to get it right whereas we have but three score and ten!