I may have overlooked it, but what is the process of liming while using the throw and mow? Do you just top dress it?

Thats exactly how i put out my lime.

Yes, just top dress it. Someone who is just starting out though, needs to assess the condition/type of their soil and let that be a consideration as well. If you are dealing with a hard clay that has been tilled in the past and has a very compacted, crusted over surface.....then it would be better to go ahead and cut the lime in. In sandier conditions it wouldn't be as big of a concern. Once you get your soil gets turned around even in heavier clays though, your soil structure will change and allow better infiltration. That's really the basis for the decision. Is lots of water running off of your plot or is it soaking up in the ground?

If I were just starting the throw and mow method, I'd wait until fall and do my first planting with a cereal grain, clover, brassica mix. I'd spend this summer getting ready for that planting by mowing down those mature cereal grains and getting a mulch layer started on the soil surface. I'd then work on getting your nutrients right during the summer and allowing the plot to grow another crop of biomass from the natural vegetation which will be used to cover over your fall seed with another mulch layer.

Have you considered throwing out some millet for a cover crop in those sprayed fields for the purpose of putting a quick canopy over the soil surface?

CNC-

Yes, I have some milo that I've thought about broadcasting. I'm going to wait and see what type of burn I get on the plots and then make a decision. If it's a complete burn then I will definitely add back seed for thatch.

We ideally want to try and grow a diverse mix of plants with a nice balance between them. Here around the edge of my field, the cereal grains have received more grazing pressure and therefore were thinned out more than the interior of the field. This thinner canopy has allowed the understory to receive more light and flourish more than the thicker interior that’s more shaded. The picture below shows a pretty nice balance of diversity.

This concept dealing with canopy….overstory…understory..etc… is an important one to understand. I probably should have gone ahead and mowed the rye one time right before it went to seed. That would have terminated some of the plants and thinned out the rye some. It’s a lot thicker than I thought. On a side note…pay attention to your cereal grain production in the spring, It can tell you a lot about your plots productivity as well as the browsing pressure its receiving. Many small plots won’t even produce grain because the deer keep them eat down too much. Other plots won’t produce grain because soil conditions are too poor. As you improve the soil conditions, you may likely see more grain production.



This yellow flower I believe is cutleaf evening primrose. Start thinking outside of the box that we’ve put food plotting in. Listen to the deer more than the farmer to tell you what is good and what is bad. Crimson clover is “pretty” this time of year and therefore you’ll get a lot of folks who want to use that scene to represent a great deer plot.....and at one point in time it was. However, just like Joe pointed out….Do the deer think that picture of pure crimson is just as pretty? Hell no….They quit feeding on crimson clover a couple weeks earlier as it began to harden off and go to seed. You want to have diversity. Most of your “weeds” are the enemies of farmers...…not goats.

That's kind of what I did last year. I planted cereal grains (mostly rye), CC, and rape in this plot. I spread one ton of lime per acre before doing so. That brought the ph up to 6.3 from 5.8. Given that, is your advice the same?

Also, when you say, "work on getting your nutrients right during the summer" what do you mean? More lime and disc it in then let natural vegetation grow?

Thanks for your help.

Holding capacity for nutrients is like a bucket. Depending on soil type and organic matter content some plots will have a big bucket….some plots will have a small bucket. Either way you still want to try and keep a balanced ratio of all nutrients within your bucket. Take “K” as an example. The optimum “K” level for my plot right now is around 210 lbs/ac. I tested my plot a couple falls ago after having added some 0-0-60 and I was running 220 lbs/ac which is great. Cut to the following spring when I did another soil test and my levels had dropped to around 180 lbs/ac. You’ll often here people talk about adding 0-20-20 in the spring to fertilize their clover. That really misrepresents what’s going on though. You don’t really fertilize the plant….you fertilize the soil. That following spring I added another dusting of potash (0-0-60) not to “fertilize the clover” but rather to get my K levels back up into the optimum range. Your nutrients such as Ca (lime), P, and K will stay in the soil for long time periods if soil conditions are good. It is very possible that if you keep those levels in check during May, June then at most you will probably only need a small dusting at fall planting to bring levels back up or maybe even none at all. Again, change the way you think about fertilizing. We’re not fertilizing the plant….we’re adding nutrients to the soil. The soil “fertilizes” the plant.

Nitrogen is a little different beast. It has a very short life compared to the other nutrients. From what I can tell, I get about 5-6 weeks out of a nitrogen application. Adding nitrogen to a plot is like giving an engine more gas. All of those other nutrients are like the individual components of the engine. If you get them in proper balance with one another then when you give the engine gas….it’ll go! Adding nitrogen to your plot is like stepping on the go, go, grow gas pedal. It needs to be added to produce more yield.

Let me stop right there for now………..Questions?

Going to the co-op today to pickup a Spring mix. Throw and mow tomorrow ahead of the rain. Not sure what I'm gonna plant.


Mix had: iron clay peas, soybeans (Hutchenson), WGF sorghum, sunflowers, and buckwheat.

I hear you, CNC, but do you just broadcast it or do you cut in your lime and fertilizer?

Just broadcast it unless you are dealing with some really hard clay soil.

Of course we didn't get the rain we were supposed to today......

Any pics of the field before/after planting?

Would have been nice wouldn't it?

Yeah....it makes it a lot easier to answer questions when folks have them. If you take enough pictures then its almost as good as someone being able to walk the plot themselves.

Soil temps are looking much better now for many of our summer plot species. It's still low though for things like buckwheat or egyptian wheat. They call for 80 degree temps on those I believe. I think sorghum may be in that class too but I don't recall for sure without looking it up. You can see the difference that just a couple weeks has made and why its important to check soil temps when deciding when to plant in the spring. Soils temps have risen over 10 degree.

Cereal grains continuing to dry.........

Some good info on cereal rye....

Link

No-till tomato update.....Some of the plants are starting to reach the first set of scaffolds now and as they do I'm going ahead and pruning off the lower limbs. The plants are really growing fast. I'll have to get a second row of scaffolding going pretty soon.