So I’m trying my hand at windrow composting since I can’t haul my manure out to the field. The temperatures have been in the 60s and everything is wet and saturated. Johnny attended a few compost workshops and I did a little internet research. Hopefully it doesn’t get too wet and stinky, and the temperature gets just right to then turn it later on.
Sometimes farming is like walking in the dark. I guess I am walking in the dark a lot lately.
We had some prevent planting acres that we seeded to an oat and tillage radish cover crop last summer. In a previous post, we debated on what we should do with the cover crop acres. On one section we ran it over with a soil finisher and stopped because it was plugging up and making piles of oat straw everywhere. Then we disced it to chop up the oat straw, then we soil finished it again to level it out. What a fiasco. We probably did more damage to the soil than anything.
We needed an alternative. With the help of fellow PFI members and staff, we chose two options: vertically till and no-till corn right into the cover. I have really wanted to plant no-till corn into a cover crop and see how it works on our types of soils, so I am excited to scout this field and see what the stand counts are.
Here’s a few pics from the tractor can, planting corn right into oat straw.
