Worrisome windshield tour

[timetippingpt]

Giant ruts...well thanks for making the point. We have not one rut.

We also have our own tiling machine. Ruts are signs of poor

management, OR just a very tough weather situation. In either

case, they have to be fixed. As I mentioned, sometimes you

have to fix things. Nothing wrong with that.

IF the soil is concrete, do you really think working it every

year makes it less concrete? No, concrete normally results

from too much Mag. You need a few years, lots of gypsum,

and GASP maybe even change the crop rotation. FIRST, do

some one acre soil sampling grids and find out what the

base saturations are and learn what is making it concrete.

Look up Dave Brandt on the net, GREAT farmer with lots

of proven ideas.

After a 4" rain May 4th on some farms, 3 tenths on others,

those pounded light clay soils were concrete.

After all this heat and dryout, they crumble. Tiled soils are

not that way. Of course, you have to get out of the truck with

a spade to know that. But YES, we have many fields that

need work that aren't there yet, so we too have problems,

just nothing that tillage will fix long-term.

As always, your local knowledge is better than mine, so

maybe you are right. That would mean that you should

probably move to a more productive area of the country.

Ha...just kidding  :-).

Lots of K deficiency showing up regardless of system, it

is a water soluble nutrient of course. With no water, guess what

no K is available. Just need a shower to fix that problem.

Maybe Thursday. Yield potential is still good in our area, but

every day some is lost, not to be regained this year.

[Blacksandfarmer]

Time, I am not above conservation practices. For years I have liked the idea of strip tillage, but even a decent used strip-till machine is big bucks. Not to mention the guidance systems to go along with the machine. The ground I bought a few years ago has since been tiled and runoff really isn't a problem these days. As far as picking up and moving to more productive ground...... Not going to happen these days, but I sure do wish my great Grandparents would have kept going west a couple hundred miles and I probably wouldn't be worrying about drought once again....