I’m not totally against spraying or adding fertilizer. But if I can reduce my fertilizer costs in the future it’s interesting. We rent a field to a farmer who does a cotton/peanut rotation so I’m kind of familiar with what goes into production ag, at least in our area.

My current method is to spray, mow, spread fertilizer then make a single pass with the Firminator using the least amount of angle in the gangs as needed, usually 5-10 degrees. I’m getting anywhere from 40-100% coverage of crop residue as a mulch after the single pass. Goal is to keep as much surface cover as possible over the entire year.

I’ve got several years of soil sample results on one property and an initial base line this year on another. If things improve and I can cut my fertilizer, great. If not, I’ll burn the thatch off in a couple of years and run a set of disks through it buried to the hub and maybe break out the disc plow and roll everything over. I also know I’m generally working with some pretty good soils to begin with. JohnG and those guys working with prairie soils are wrestling with a totally different beast.

One common theme I hear in a lot of habitat discussion is “site specific”. If I can save a little money, great. If not I can resume planting using traditional methods. Your mileage may vary and if it does great.