They'll probably never go back when they realized their plots look just as good as previous years....

That’s where your wrong. You ever drop a 12’ five thousand pound disc and see sparks fly when there is zero moisture. Throw and hope won’t work during dry years in this soil but will be fine this year.

There’s no absolutes on any of this. It all depends on soil type, available moisture and seed predation from birds, hogs etc.

I'd like to see what would happen in some of this soil after a few years of heavy mulch crops mowed or layed down over the surface........There would have to be some build up of OM over time to help buffer some of these issues if done properly

🤦🏿🤦🏿🤦🏿🤦🏿

Lol!.......That's the same look the folks at the coop gave me this morning when I said I was planting today and it was pouring raining outside the door.....

harold the problem is the cracks would swallow it all up over the same period of time.

Here’s the thing fellas…….and I don’t mean this combative…….but I’ve heard people say “it wont work” so many times in the last decade that its become cliché to hear…….The very thing folks have said wont work….. IS working like a charm for me and others……..Now its just changing to “Oh, well it wont work here.”…….Which seems to be a common response……I remember Grant Woods saying this same thing nearly verbatim on of his recent shows about folks saying..... “Oh, but it wont work here!”….

I would ask this question…….How much have y’all experimented in this soil trying to find a way to make something different work??.......Now before some of you go and say……”I’ve been farming and food plotting in this soil for 30 years!!!!!”……….That’s not what I’m asking………..I’m not asking you how long you’ve been doing it the same way…….I’m asking you how much time have you actually spent experimenting with figuring out something new???.......Are you basing “it wont work” off of assumptions or trial and error?

A

We have everything mowed and usually would have sprayed last weekend but I was out of town. We usually plant 3rd weekend in October but it might be the next weekend. Im hoping to spray this weekend if it is dry enough.

We are down the red road from JohnG been throwing and mowing for 6 years now.
Deer eat it all the same

I’m about 15 miles due east of JohnG. Prairie dirt but not as bad as some. We have bush hogged all our plots 3 or 4 weeks ago and sprayed them all weekend before last.

We had PLANNED to disk them all, spread the seed and fertilizer and cover or cultipack.

We will either A or maybe IF it’s dry enough, but still wet enough I that the ground is soft, just spread and run the cultipacker and call it a day. That’s my preference anyway.

Trouble is my lease partner is the owner of a VERY successful business and is accustomed to everything going the way he has in mind, which is disking.

Be interesting to see what happens. Lol

If you have planted the plot several times you can just spread fertilizer and it will come up and look great just as of you had planted it. We have some plots we have not put a drop of seed on in 3 yrs that are as pretty as any of the ones we prep and plant each year.

Started yesterday and was surprised how much it has dried out the top couple inches. Ended up using every cylinder stop I had and set the finishing disc at about an inch and hardly no gum-ups. Just needed these bright days after being cut, sprayed, cut again then lightly hit with the field cultivator. Sure like the 12’ heavy duty batwing that Andy at Lowery built me. With having three 4’ sections there were zero windrows.

Broadcast seed and fertillizer and mow it later.

You need a chisel plow with some good sharp points on it and I would probably get serious about developing some tilth by any means necessary. Get some manure if you can, sawdust, hay whatever it takes to get that soil in better condition by adding organic matter. If the situation is as bad as it sounds you've probably already got compaction, etc. Not good. I would probably go all the way back to step one and rip it then plant for organic matter.

Glad to hear you got it done, JohnG

Well, option A (wait for better conditions) paid off. It finally dried enough for us to work the ground. We got it done on 10/26 and then an inch of rain fell the next night.

Berseem clover is a fall producer and it does fairly well in wet conditions. Well, better than all the other clovers and again, it will do well in forage production in the fall.

My disc only weighs like 300 lbs

I just plant ahead of a rain. It's not super complicated.