Soil Structure Recovery

[DrWazzock]

It’s been a hell of a wet time. We have some seriously slumped soils.
What are people planning to do to alleviate the damage?
Leave it to natural processes?
Deep rooted cover crop?
Deeper loosening tine?
Plough?

A lot will depend on the weather this summer but just wondered what general strategies would be.
Last autumn, ploughing saw us at least drill most of it but slumping was fairly bad. I’m tempted to try a subsoiler/disc/packer machine this summer if it’s dry enough. Hope to bust the pan without over pulverising to depth.

 

[cquick]

LD subsoiler as soon as it dries out, then drill a big cover crop by the end of May. Using a tine drill if it's crusty.
Sunflowers, radish, millet, rye, beans, etc. If you want to spend more you could add something more exotic like sorghum-sudangrass.

The plan is to make cracks and fill them with roots to hold the structure open. Should also be able to graze it before autumn drilling, then it would justify some slurry or digestate before subsoiling to really make the cover crop move.

 

[teslacoils]

If it's got any green on, leave it be. Hope it grows, cracks, then get it mucked and ploughed.

If it's had puddles on and bare, I'll either try and broadcast some screenings and mix them in, but pretty much do the same.

If the weather is not forthcoming, I'll get a cruel drag out and open it up like a lemon.

 

[warksfarmer]

It’s been a hell of a wet time. We have some seriously slumped soils.
What are people planning to do to alleviate the damage?
Leave it to natural processes?
Deep rooted cover crop?
Deeper loosening tine?
Plough?

A lot will depend on the weather this summer but just wondered what general strategies would be.
Last autumn, ploughing saw us at least drill most of it but slumping was fairly bad. I’m tempted to try a subsoiler/disc/packer machine this summer if it’s dry enough. Hope to bust the pan without over pulverising to depth.

Whats going in to SFI will just be direct drilled (tined) early June. The rest will get a proper subsoiling with an LD machine and leaving. Then as its typically grass weed areas anyway will get glyphosate as required to planting this autumn. Its an opportunity to deal with what on the surface seed bank wise. I might do a very light discing to get a slightly deeper seed chit but we will see.

 

[som farmer]

sub soil maize/spring barley ground, but to much grass on the leys for that.

had hoped to have been able to run the aerator over the grass ground, that didn't happen, and to much grass to do now.

we surface pan quite badly, so after 1st cut/graze, will try and aerate again. Will be interesting to see if the herbal leys, with chicory, suffer less.

just blowing a gale here, and torrential rain, that's horizontal, just started !

 

[zero]

Fields that are still too wet for travelling are going to get a cover crop broadcast on after a light cultvator when it gets a dry crust on top. Bald patches in fields are going to get left till they dry and crack deep, then I've got a muck heap thats like pipe baccy to spread on them.

 

[DrWazzock]

Probably disc behind the combine, paraplow, spray off and drill, or just plough it.
If we get another wet winter it might cope better with the rain loosened but not ploughed.
However the ploughing did at least dry a bit on the top to facilitate autumn drilling.
Our tramlines are atrocious so they at least will need moving to level them out.
I’ve two bags of mustard seed in the shed that needs using. Might scratch it in to the failed OSR land as a bit of cover. It’s light land though, so doesn’t really need busting but the OM might help.
SFI options look slightly more attractive now as “repair” crops for root mass etc, and though I’m still thinking if I can get winter barley in early it would suit well after wheat. Might even spin the OSR roulette wheel again using home saved seed. Hopefully my cousin still has his subsoiler drill that could go into disced stubbles. Really would have to disc here as my combine chopper is crap or sell the straw.?

 

[Clive]

It’s been a hell of a wet time. We have some seriously slumped soils.
What are people planning to do to alleviate the damage?
Leave it to natural processes?
Deep rooted cover crop?
Deeper loosening tine?
Plough?

A lot will depend on the weather this summer but just wondered what general strategies would be.
Last autumn, ploughing saw us at least drill most of it but slumping was fairly bad. I’m tempted to try a subsoiler/disc/packer machine this summer if it’s dry enough. Hope to bust the pan without over pulverising to depth.

our structure has held well as we have kept something growing on ever acre. - nothing fixes soil better than a plant, deep cultivation is a backward step in my experience/ on MY soil type

some areas will get a light pass with the carrier / biodrill to break a bit of surface capping

the sfi mixes that will rotate over the next 3 years should do a massive amount for structure and the biology that creates that

 

[The Gentleman Farmer]

Zero-tilling here for a good few years so soil structure pretty good. All crops drilled have survived and look as well as can be expected. It took me twenty years or more to learn cultivations don't really help with very much at all. The soil needs to be dry at cultivation depth, and travel light if the soil is wet below cultivation depth else you just see the damage from the tractor for years.

 

[Bossfarmer]

i would suggest a grass ley for 3-5 years, grazed with cattle

 

[ajd132]

i would suggest a grass ley for 3-5 years, grazed with cattle

I don't think the OP is going to start a whole new business enterprise and take 5 years to sort out abit of wether beaten soil

 

[yellow belly]

Mole drain and plant crops to dry out land

having a bare land fallow aka setaside made heavy land wetter by the following spring even with ploughing in early July
The first fields to have drains running in September

 

[The Gentleman Farmer]

Mole drain and plant crops to dry out land

having a bare land fallow aka setaside made heavy land wetter by the following spring even with ploughing in early July
The first fields to have drains running in September

The wettest land is a bare fallow, absolutly no doubt.

 

[Bossfarmer]

I don't think the OP is going to start a whole new business enterprise and take 5 years to sort out abit of wether beaten soil

the OP already has sheep and he is finding it far more profitable than cereals, logic would say grass a bit more down and follow the money, will give the ground a rest from arable also

 

[PSQ]

As little smearing as possible, which would massively increase the length of time that the damage would need for remediation.

Ideally stitch in something quick growing with high root biomass to suck out moisture and improve structure, like spring oats.

 

[e3120]

I don't think the OP is going to start a whole new business enterprise and take 5 years to sort out abit of wether beaten soil

I've read the OP as quite open to herbal leying the lot and covering it in additional wooly maggots.

 

[Kidds]

The bits where I have a problem I will plough, there are also bits down to grass that are not brilliant but I think will be OK if it just stops raining for more than 12 hours

 

[RushesToo]

@DrWazzock As this is probably the new normal I would take a number of fields that are roughly as bad all over and try different things. Keep it simple and always to the same things from West to east or whatever so there is no keeping accurate records [unless that is your thing]
It limits your risk and gives you knowledge what to do next time.

I supect having something growing in the soil at all times will be the winner, but you will know better than this in 12 months and more so at harvest time.

 

[Wombat]

Hope it’s a baking hot summer as that will do 80% of it then a ld subsoiler will go through it

 

[DrWazzock]

Deep drought induced cracking does a certain amount of good but I reckon it’s easy to “render” the surface and fill those cracks with finer material sealing them by surface cultivation.
In the past we’d use the subsoiler in previously ponded areas when it had dried up to cut into the porous fill over the drains. This opening up only lasted about 2 years though, before such areas sealed up again despite being double drained at 11 yard intervals. It’s pure solid blue clue in the subsoil in such areas. Direct drilling with minimal disturbance of such drought cracked areas probably allowed them free drainage for longest but lack of surface tilth and general hardness was a difficulty.
What I think it needs is the lowest possible disturbance loosening or none and the minimum possible surface cultivation to allow seed to soil contact at drilling and also to allow seedbed drying prior to drilling. Trash and weedseed chitting are also a consideration.
It’s actually an incredibly complex management decision to optimise the situation in the round rather than just blunder in with the plough or deep tine loosener. Has rotation implications as well.
Here with no straw removal I’m minded to follow winter wheat with spring barley as it gives time for natural crop residue breakdown and grass weed chit and only requires the lightest of surface cultivations post harvest to even out trash, chit rubbish, leave it slightly rough rather than flat and then spray off and direct drill in the spring. Over winter cover crop? Well only if it doesn’t give me an excessive trash problem in the spring.
The problem now with ploughing is the over winter slump, surface erosion, time and expense but we are by no means in easy street with the almost direct drilling or min till approach either.
Grass rotations are fine but not every fieid is convenient for grass for reasons of location, lack of fencing and water, shelter etc.
Just pontificating. No doubt we’ll just do what seems right on the day.