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central ND/SD border | I left a piece of poor ground unplanted this year, its sandy and doesn't produce well in a normal year. Plan is to plant winter wheat or rye this fall. So, deciding if I should leave it as chemical fallow or plant some cover crop then spray it down in August. Any suggestions either way?
I'm just old enough to remember before the freedom to farm and us having to leave small pieces of fields as summer fallow. Then the following year, riding in the combine and the wheat windrow would almost double in size from the continuous crop section to the part that was fallow the previous year. I don't know what physically happened in the soil from that year of summer fallow, but sure seemed like it made a big difference every time. This was before we did no-til, fertilized like it should have been and didn't spray very often either. Don't know if having a cover crop would give a boost like the summer fallow did.
Probably a difference in a long term improvement or a 1 year spike. | |
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summer fallow vs cover crop
