southern MN | Gerald J. - 9/7/2009 18:03
No way to go organic and notill. Organic takes LOTS of tillage. At least 5 passes with rotary hoe and cultivator after planting in ground cleaned by plowing, disking two or three times, and with one pass of the field cultivator. I found I saved a pass with the disk after I added a couple rows of spring tooth on the back. Same for the field cultivator. But all that preparation work brought up weed seed to its optimum growing depth and it really did grow.
You make a lot of good points in the debate, I don't really disagree. Wouldn't mind discussing one. :)
Back when dad farmed & I was little & he was cheap & basically farmed organicly because the stuff at the store cost more than he wanted to pay....
Seemed if you disked (or field cultivated) like normal, waited a week - hoped a little rain fell in between - and harrowed the field, you would mess up a lot of those little hair-white weeds. Plant right away, harrow a week after planting or whenever it was cracking the soil (rotory hoe it now adays) and then cultivate every 7 days for 3 times.
That did fair job of controling the weeds if you could keep the schedule up. I'd not disk multiple times, nor was putting the harrow on the disk/field cultivator a good idea. You needed that gap for the weeds to sprout & then kill them with the harrow. You didn't want to disk several times, that would bring up a new flush of weed seeds each time. You could not be the first person out there with a planter - you needed to let the weeds sprout.
Again, not to disagree - just different ideas on how to get the crop growing & keep the weeds back?
We had some real wet years in there when dad was farming - that was not fun, I understand the issues you mention all too well.
--->Paul |
Organic crops, notill or work ground?
