plowin' pictures as promised

   / plowin' pictures as promised
  • Thread Starter
#31  
Creamer all the crops you guy grow are not bedded crops right? Everything here is bedded so as far as tillage goes bedding is the minimum that is done. Breaking is only done every several years on dry land or pivot irrigated land. The land under drip.is never plowed. Those that plow do so to get rid of hherbicide resistant weeds. I do it cause I like to :)
 
   / plowin' pictures as promised
  • Thread Starter
#32  
Cotton our primary crop here does not do well with no till or minimum till
 
   / plowin' pictures as promised #33  
i can rent a brand new no till for 10$ per acre here.
 
   / plowin' pictures as promised #35  
Cotton our primary crop here does not do well with no till or minimum till

Why is that? Certainly it is a major enough crop that herbicides have been developed for it. Maybe it is not where you are at but moisture conservation is one of the major benefits of not till. I would think that would be very important in most of Texas as well. Where I live now in Indiana it is typically not that important. I guess what really sold me on it was a field we had always fought with low spots that were wet when I was growing up. They never have that problem anymore. One time I went out there with my brother and we turned over a spade full here and there and everywhere was full of earthworms. He says that is the way it is all over - no tillage means you are not killing the earthworms which naturally aerate the soil. Another big factor is erosion control. One big issue they are concerned about now that we never used to is compaction. Of course equipment is larger but without tillage there is also no mechanical loosening of the soil so you have to give nature its time. Since they run a lot of beef cows and like cornstalks for pasture they have to be careful about when they let the cows in. A wet warm fall leaves the ground very vulnerable.
 
   / plowin' pictures as promised
  • Thread Starter
#36  
Why is that? Certainly it is a major enough crop that herbicides have been developed for it. Maybe it is not where you are at but moisture conservation is one of the major benefits of not till. I would think that would be very important in most of Texas as well. Where I live now in Indiana it is typically not that important. I guess what really sold me on it was a field we had always fought with low spots that were wet when I was growing up. They never have that problem anymore. One time I went out there with my brother and we turned over a spade full here and there and everywhere was full of earthworms. He says that is the way it is all over - no tillage means you are not killing the earthworms which naturally aerate the soil. Another big factor is erosion control. One big issue they are concerned about now that we never used to is compaction. Of course equipment is larger but without tillage there is also no mechanical loosening of the soil so you have to give nature its time. Since they run a lot of beef cows and like cornstalks for pasture they have to be careful about when they let the cows in. A wet warm fall leaves the ground very vulnerable.

It has been tried. The whole bit. No till, organic, cover crops, all kinds of stuff. Cotton still produces better quantity and quality doing it the way it is done here. Starting after harvest a field is untouched until late winter. It is then, if it is going to be broken that it is done. If no breaking is done then fertilizer (lately composted manure) is applied and incorporated in with a chisel. next in the early spring pre-emergent is applied and again incorporated. Then a few weeks before planting the ground is bedded. It has to be bedded in order for it to be stripped properly. I always wondered why on sub-irrigated land was the field bedded and that is what I was told. Then throughout the growing season, it is periodically cultivated to both loosen the crust and kill the weeds that the spraying didn't get. We have a very tenacious weed here called a blue weed. About the only way to control it is to plow it under. As far as the cotton being thick enough to shield the sunlight from the undesirables, that only happens during the very last few weeks of the crop. Weeds do well here and it is a constant battle.
I would so love to be able to turn up a shovel of dirt and see it loaded with earthworms.

Yes, the cotton is "roundup ready". I sprayed nearly straight roundup on a small patch of cotton to try and kill the blueweeds. Didn't kill the cotton OR the blue weeds.
WE have good soil here and it grows very good cotton on just a little water. but we have to do it differently than other places.
 
   / plowin' pictures as promised #37  
Why is that? Certainly it is a major enough crop that herbicides have been developed for it. Maybe it is not where you are at but moisture conservation is one of the major benefits of not till. I would think that would be very important in most of Texas as well. Where I live now in Indiana it is typically not that important. I guess what really sold me on it was a field we had always fought with low spots that were wet when I was growing up. They never have that problem anymore. One time I went out there with my brother and we turned over a spade full here and there and everywhere was full of earthworms. He says that is the way it is all over - no tillage means you are not killing the earthworms which naturally aerate the soil. Another big factor is erosion control. One big issue they are concerned about now that we never used to is compaction. Of course equipment is larger but without tillage there is also no mechanical loosening of the soil so you have to give nature its time. Since they run a lot of beef cows and like cornstalks for pasture they have to be careful about when they let the cows in. A wet warm fall leaves the ground very vulnerable.

I'm going to guess that your family has also switched from anhydrous ammonia to another form. Probably liquid. As anhydrous is also hard on the earthworm population. I know a farm that's been no-till for close to 30 years. The farmer said his earthworms didn't come back till he switch away from anhydrous.

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   / plowin' pictures as promised #38  
Allen - thanks for the explanation. having never been around cotton I have no idea of how it works.

Farmer2009 - never used anhydrous but I could certainly understand how that would be hard on earthworms.
 
   / plowin' pictures as promised #39  
Here is my two bottom plow parked to the right of the brush hog. Be a while yet before I can do any land plowing.
 
 

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