Buying Land

[clayton58]

What are you or others in your area doing to deal with the saline/sodic situation? I deal with the same thing on a couple of my farms

[KSKid501]

Some backhoe, some use gypsum.  Some will only irrigate a circle every other year (they have twice as many wells as pivots, the thought process is that hopefully rainfall in the off year will leach some of the sodium below the root zone).  Also, I personally have been involved with research on Na-tolerant soybeans for two of the local seed companies.  However, I cannot publically divulge whom the research was for, or what companies were involved in the study.  Only one circle has gotten bad enough that they actually turned it into pasture growing saltgrass.

[buckfarmer]

What is salt grass and will It grow in my yard? Im in Central Ohio BTW. Need something that will grow where my water softener pumps out.

[KSKid501]

Distichlis spicata is the latin name.  Irrigated yields can reach 9T/acre.

[James22]

Soil test is pretty cheap, but many buyers want/have this before purchasing the property.  Land purchases were so capital intensive that they always tapped me out; no way could consider tiling and wouldn't borrow more money although potentially this might result in better yields/more profit.  Perhaps there could have been a "smarter" more effective path to repay the land mortgage, but I managed to do it several times and retain my sanity.

[Shaggy98]

I hear where your coming from James.  Buying land has become an interesting and expensive addition.  Increasing the value and productive potential of some of this land is only an extension of the original purchase.  Being able to compile a land base is one thing, being able to make any existing acres more productive is another.  That is where I find myself right now, I'm happy with my current size, but I'd love to expand it's productive capibilities.  Unfortunately trying to do this while in the middle of a 4 year drought is a tough road to travel, but I'm plugging away one field at a time. Sooner or later I'll get there but there isn't any quick fix, everything takes time.