Soil health

[Farmer Fin]

Hi, I’m after a bit of advice to settle an argument. Ploughing up WW stubble and we were turning up OSR stalks ploughed down the year before. Father reckoned this was a sign of good organic matter, I’m thinking poor soil health as surely this should all be gone 14 months after being ploughed?

 

[cows r us]

Anaerobic soil. It's bad. We pulled up maize stalks four years after we ploughed them down. That was one reason we went to direct drilling. Our soils soils had become dead.

 

[BigBarl]

Not a good sign. We often pull up compacted lumps of chopped straw from previous years in our lifeless heavy clay soils and it always makes me wince a little.

 

[cows r us]

Not a good sign. We often pull up compacted lumps of chopped straw from previous years in our lifeless heavy clay soils and it always makes me wince a little.

Sounds much like our farm. We are on heavy clays, some fields you rarely saw a worm. Soil health is now at the forefront of our business.

 

[BigBarl]

Sounds much like our farm. We are on heavy clays, some fields you rarely saw a worm. Soil health is now at the forefront of our business.

Our issue is no organic matter return from muck or grazing livestock, and chopping straw is a very unproductive way of adding OM. I would like a muck for straw deal if I could find someone to work with. I would like to try cover cropping but want to get top side of the black grass first so we can maximise glyphosate between crops (while we still have it...). We are rotating 2-3 year leys around and the 2 yr legume fallow on CSS which is helping. Slow old process building OM back up though!

 

[Pebd99]

Does the same count as I’m ploughing up spring barley stubble from the spring time ploughing? I’m thinking it’s been too dry as it’s still stew at that level.

 

[cows r us]

Does the same count as I’m ploughing up spring barley stubble from the spring time ploughing? I’m thinking it’s been too dry as it’s still stew at that level.

If your as dry as we are I would have thought that worm and microbial activity would have been very limited this summer at plough depth.

 

[SilliamWhale]

What you've done is put it away underneath and because of no aerobic activity down there (and therefore less "life") it cannot break down.

 

[SilliamWhale]

Our issue is no organic matter return from muck or grazing livestock, and chopping straw is a very unproductive way of adding OM. I would like a muck for straw deal if I could find someone to work with. I would like to try cover cropping but want to get top side of the black grass first so we can maximise glyphosate between crops (while we still have it...). We are rotating 2-3 year leys around and the 2 yr legume fallow on CSS which is helping. Slow old process building OM back up though!

Chopping straw isn't the most productive way of adding OM but it tilling the soil isn't a better way of building it either. All depends on what your rotation - cover crops have drawbacks too

 

[Pebd99]

If your as dry as we are I would have thought that worm and microbial activity would have been very limited this summer at plough depth.

Didn’t see any worms on the go at all. I’m sure the worms have gone deeper to get some moisture. It’s weird walking on the ploughing just now as it feels crunchy.

 

[Brisel]

Hi, I’m after a bit of advice to settle an argument. Ploughing up WW stubble and we were turning up OSR stalks ploughed down the year before. Father reckoned this was a sign of good organic matter, I’m thinking poor soil health as surely this should all be gone 14 months after being ploughed?

Bad. No decay means poor soil life.

 

[Clive]

Hi, I’m after a bit of advice to settle an argument. Ploughing up WW stubble and we were turning up OSR stalks ploughed down the year before. Father reckoned this was a sign of good organic matter, I’m thinking poor soil health as surely this should all be gone 14 months after being ploughed?

Bad sign of soil health

Good healthy soils have so much livestock in them that organic matter is quickly consumed

 

[Clive]

Didn’t see any worms on the go at all. I’m sure the worms have gone deeper to get some moisture. It’s weird walking on the ploughing just now as it feels crunchy.

Worms are a great soil health indicator - if they are abundant then most things below them in the soil food web you can’t see without a microscope probably are as well

Should be a worm in every handful of soil

 

[Farmer Fin]

Worms are a great soil health indicator - if they are abundant then most things below them in the soil food web you can’t see without a microscope probably are as well

Should be a worm in every handful of soil

Thanks. Some worms seen. Think part of our issue is that before OSR it was carrots which were strawed down over winter. It puts a lot of straw back into the ground, but I’m wondering at what cost to the soil???

 

[Clive]

Thanks. Some worms seen. Think part of our issue is that before OSR it was carrots which were strawed down over winter. It puts a lot of straw back into the ground, but I’m wondering at what cost to the soil???

Veg is a serious soil health killer I’m affraid

 

[Flat 10]

Thanks. Some worms seen. Think part of our issue is that before OSR it was carrots which were strawed down over winter. It puts a lot of straw back into the ground, but I’m wondering at what cost to the soil???

Probably needed extra N to help break that down. Sometimes we plough odd bits of straw out where combine has stopped or something but as soon as its on top again it disappears. Its been changed and oxidises really quickly.

 

[Brisel]

Thanks. Some worms seen. Think part of our issue is that before OSR it was carrots which were strawed down over winter. It puts a lot of straw back into the ground, but I’m wondering at what cost to the soil???

The massive addition of carbon in the straw will have locked up all soil nitrogen. It should have sorted itself out by now though. Check for compaction as that won’t help the soil life at all.

 

[Farmer Fin]

The massive addition of carbon in the straw will have locked up all soil nitrogen. It should have sorted itself out by now though. Check for compaction as that won’t help the soil life at all.

Thanks. N lock up is a big issue so is the joys of farming in a NVZ. Will go looking for compaction.

 

[Brisel]

Push a length of bar into the ground. You don’t need an expensive soil tensionometer as you’ll soon feel an abrupt change in the effort required to push it down. That’s your tight layer. Dig with a spade to confirm - you’ll see lots of lateral roots which will confirm it. Root veg husbandry is brutal on soil structure and health.

 

[SilliamWhale]

But do it the compaction rod test when soil wet or your learning nothing imv. I personally still think subsoilers don't really "unlock" some kind of magical yield ceiling based on a pan anyway.

Soil life builds from the top down.