You bring up a good point N2T…….At this point, my organic matter layer is about the same depth as a set of disks would probably run. So if I have OM that deep already without doing anything other than mowing….is it necessary to disk in your OM?

Pretty plot bigt.....Is that cereal rye?

You guys are awesome…..You're like the perfect color men or sidekicks to set up the next slide.

So what Doyle here was saying is “Hey wait….That field isn’t grazed to the dirt! The deer must not like it” Look at this pic of my test field….same cereal rye mix, etc. If you look at the base of every plant you’ll see that every plant has been grazed. Healthy soil makes for strong, resilient plants that are capable of withstanding grazing pressure while still continuing to put out new growth. Same holds true in the summertime when you're trying to grow beans and such. Healthy soil makes for healthy browse tolerant plants.

Your going a little far with the awesome comments but thanks. Your control plot still doesn't look very thick and lightly browsed, maybe low deer numbers I don't know. Now, here is a pic of some wheat I planted a few weeks ago. Some of the field was lightly disced and some of it untouched. The same amount of seed was spread over the entire field but only the disced portion has really begun to take.

Yeah, that’s not at all what I’m showing to do Doyle. That is top sewing wheat on top of hard bare soil.

The technique I’m showing involves broadcasting seed onto a top layer of organic matter like potting soil and then covering it over with a layer of straw….

Got some clover and rape mixed with it too

So you reposted a picture you took two days ago?

That's a good mix......

Seriously......That's why you asked that question??

No that's not why I asked the question. You said you reposted the picture for N2Turkeys. I thought I remembered you posting the picture last year. I'm too tired to argue with you about when you took a picture.

My bad. I thought you were about to give me a hard to time for posting a pic twice or something. Its a recent soil profile pic. I've taken a few along the way to show the changes over time so you have very likely seen me post another that looked similar. The soil structure is the main change in the most recent one. I think my OM may be an inch or so deeper as well. I'll see if I can put them all together in one post to show the changes.

If doing your method for only 2 years yielded those results on OM, why was it not deeper when it was pasture for all those years?

I’m not for sure exactly how deep the OM layer may have been back in the beginning. Its not something that even crossed my mind back then. I just hooked up the disk and went to plowing. I suspect though, that it wasn’t too different than what I have now. Reason being…..a lot of what is going to effect the depth of that layer is the rooting depth of the plants your growing. A lot of what is creating that black layer of dirt is the rotting root systems of my previous crops. This field was mostly just bermuda grass and weeds back then. I’ve got the ability to now plant different deep rooted plant species that will take larger amounts of biomass deeper….things like the radishes for instance or sorghum. On a side note to this as well….other than the depth of the OM layer there’s also the concentration of the OM to consider. You want that layer to increase from 2% to 3% to 4%...etc. How fast and how much that increases depends on how you manage it.....how fast it decomposes.

When our fields dry out, I'm gonna dig in mine to see what they look like. When you were discing, did you ever dig in yours to see what it looked like?

Here is kind of like a time lapse of the last couple years.....

I can't stress enough the importance of that "structure" you see forming in the last pic.

Minus the thin layer of sand at the surface, there doesn't seem to be much difference between the top and bottom pic. May be the lighting or something.

I see a lot of diffeence, from deeper roots, to surface OM.

In the top pic there is no organic matter. The tests reflected this as well as they tested at less than 1% OM…..The middle pic has formed an organic matter layer of a couple inches…..The third pic shows the organic matter layer extending down to approx 6-8 inches. It varies a little. The current tests reflect that change testing 3.5% OM.

That first pic is not sand on top of organic matter.....Its where any clay that was present in the top couple inches separated and left pure sand on top. The soil below is my sandy clay mix. It does have a little bit of clay content and that's what gives it an orangish look.

N2T....Do you not see the structure change in the top couple inches of the last pic?