His soil looks like this now. Gabe Brown - he gives some good talks on the subject of rebuilding soil fertility, tilth and water holding capacity that can be found on youtube.
Posted on 04/01/2022 6:17:03 AM PDT by blam
My FIL double cropped soy beans and wheat for years with no nitrogen and small P and K additions. He was a base hitter, never missed a crop, usually not bumper yields but steady. No GMO corn back then and it did not grow well in our area anyway. The big change was shorter TAM wheat not so susceptible to blow down. He also was fortunate to irrigate from the river and keeping that old pump going was a night and day job.
Corn is destructive. It just takes and takes and gives nothing back to the soil but lots of stalks. Wheat is the same but fits in cycle with beans if you hurry.
He also worked around a thousand acres with two 125 hp class tractors and ten row equipment. They worked around the clock in the season. There was also no glyphosate resistant GMO stuff; my MIL worked all day to keep the field crew working with hoes to clean the bean crop. They sprayed with a crop duster. Morning Glory was the devil weed.
That is really cool.
Looks like the flattened/rolled vegetative mass would also help retain soil moisture and tilth, too.
Most of the crap we are being hammered with is not necessary. That is what makes it so disgusting.
His soil looks like this now. Gabe Brown - he gives some good talks on the subject of rebuilding soil fertility, tilth and water holding capacity that can be found on youtube.
Problems faced by farmers are largely the result of government programs which have rewarded conformity and penalized entrepreneurship. This is more especially true with larger farms that may be really great at continuous corn or a corn/beans rotation, but have no ability to improvise in the short term.
Stories such as this are intended to nudge the government into increased assistance programs (programs which comparatively benefit farmers who are unable to improvise).
Farmers look at both the cost of planting and the price a crop will bring.
If everyone switches to soybeans or alfalfa then the person who planted corn will make more money and be able to buy fertilizer next season.
(From the article):" The rising cost of natural gas, the primary input for most nitrogen fertilizer, has been one reason for rising fertilizer prices.
Also, global supplies are expected to tighten as Russia will limit fertilizer exports to ‘unfriendly‘ countries.
Russia is one of the biggest exporters globally — the US just so happens to be a large importer of nitrogen and potash from Russia."
Gregerson said due to global disruptions, “getting fertilizer is going to be more and more of a problem for the world in general.”
In return, farmers will transition to crops that use less fertilizer — and it will be done globally."
"In central Illinois, farmer Kenneth Hartman said he might not get much income off the soybeans but won’t have the expenses of planting corn."
Comments ?
Barbecues with soy on the cob just aren’t quite the same...
Composting is your friend.
Animals that we eat eat corn.
Prep.
Now.
Look at Pollard’s list in post 51 and decide what you need yet.
Join Diana’s gardening thread.
I have no science to back it up, but it seems obesity and diabetes became more prevalent when they switched from cane sugar to corn syrup in drinks and foods. I buy sodas from Mexico with sugar and they taste much better.
THEY won’t be eating bugs, or Soylent Green.
I’m planting some raspberry and blackberry bushes this year in addition to my garden.
Ha! Good post.
Lol
Haven’t heard that before.
Corn fed beef are just fatter. It’s not more nutritional than grass.
I did a little research and cattle are just finished off on grain. For the major portion of their lives they eat grass and other things like the leftovers from distiller’s grains that humans can’t digest.
Only 7% of their overall feed input is grain.
https://extension.okstate.edu/fact-sheets/corn-as-cattle-feed-vs-human-food.html
Oh, and free fishin’ worms! What’s not to like?
That’s just a beautiful sight.
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