West Central Alberta Coldest, wettest edge | Winter came exceptionally early this year. Snowed in early October, melted briefly, then snowed again, almost melted, now back to White again, -25C this morning. Has been nearly impossible to do much fall field work, not to mention to finish combining. So after persevering, and getting some fall work done(including plowing), with varying amounts of white on the ground, my neighbor tells me that the old timers said to never plow snow under. We can't see any good reason why that would be, does anyone else have a reason? Best we could think is that the snow layer will acts as an insulator and keep the ground from warming/thawing as fast as it should. We are always saturated in the spring, so I don't see where trapping the moisture would be an issue. Snow supposedly contains slightly more N than rain, trapping that should have some benefit.
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