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Sanilac Co. Michigan | I'm 100% notill, but that's because I can make it work with my rotation/crop mix. My immediate area and presumably the posters area, are sugar beet regions and if that's in your rotation notill on a continuous basis just isn't a practical solution. Sorry, but notilling soys, but working ground otherwise isn't notill, it's just conveniently omitting a tillage step with practically no long term benefits. The cover crop thing, well I don't know. As cold, wet and short seasoned as we are, it gets pretty iffy establishing any cover with meaningful growth and benifit before the 1st of November and it's got to be terminated before May.
So, what to do in order to take out compaction? Deeper ripping should help, but given the typical weather we get not always being advantageous when time is available, you might just establish a new compacted zone a bit deeper. A deep rooted crop like alfalfa in the rotation would help, but that comes with its own set of problems if you're not excited about getting in the hay business!
I guess if a guy isn't interested in making radical changes, you just keep doing what you're doing and hope for the best. Maybe we'll get a very cold, open winter and the frost will go down three feet! | |
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Compaction
