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Grabill, Indiana | While replanting soybeans this week I had time to think about this drought and the dry conditions we had. I did come up with a Silver Lining for us from this dry weather.
We try to be 100% no-till in our operation. We also farm several Amish farms that have suffered from years of plowing and disking which has a few negative impacts. First, there is a dead furrow every 40 feet. This isn't a big deal except that the ground is far from level. Second, there is a significant disk pan at 4". Since this year is so dry we intend to disk rip these fields to remove the dead furrow and ruts and remove the plow/disk pan. We will plant a cover crop to augment the soil fracturing over the winter.
We have a new farm that is as hard as a rock. The previous farmer told me "We ripped and ripped and the ground still was hard". Our plan is to disk rip to brekk through any compaction then plant a good cover crop to start getting this ground back into shape. I am hoping that we can get some hog manure spread on this ground this fall too. This ground really needs some Organic Matter and help to get the bacterial population up and working again.
The other Silver Lining is that we planted double crop soybeans. Typically our wheat is harvested too late to attempt double cropping, but this year the combines were in the field three weeks ahead of usual. Fortunately we did get a couple of showers so we had adequate moisture on our wheat fields to plant the beans.
Of course these small silver lining doesn't make up for the reduced yeilds we will be dealing with, but it does give us tom hope that something good can come out of this.
Jim
Edited by Iowa Quality Hay 7/8/2012 11:44
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Silver Lining from Drought/Dryness
