There’s a reason bottom land is so valuable.
I love the way contour planting and landscaping looks.
This property has a 3 foot deep gulch plus quite a few smaller ones that run parallel to the gravel county road that goes up/down a hill. Once upon a time, there was no official road, just an agreed upon path that a handful of neighbors used starting with horses and wagons. When one path got bad, they’d move over a bit and start another. Many tons of soil lost.
Any place where I’ve converted from forest to pasture has lost some top soil in the process. Once the leaves, humus and duff are removed and it rains, you lose some. I’ve gotten better at the timing and getting grass growing on the bare soil asap. Still might lose 1/2-1 inch but the earlier spots were 2-3 inches as told by the stumps and rocks that appeared to grow 2-3 inches taller. Where I put the perimeter fence up and drove the tractor up and down a path on the hills, I lost 4-5 inches and it’s hard to drive on now because those spots are rocky. I’ll be adding some fine gravel and then unrolling round bales on those spots multiple times. Might dump some dirt before the hay. Will also roll out the bigger/taller rocks first.
They say Nebraska has lost many feet of top soil and I believe it.
Ray Archuletta of the NRCS, the only good part of the USDA, has a presentation with two dust bowl, wind blowing soil type of slides but one pic is from the 1930s and the other one is recent. The one from the 1930s shows brown dust while the newer one shows pale or tan dust. Same thing still happening but the soil lost is of a lower quality.
Our neighbor (ex-Amish) uses that hay bale (Timothy Hay) method to refresh his fields for his horses. Works like a charm and makes perfect sense.