# Clay soil



## Coalburner (Jan 8, 2016)

I have a pasture that is pretty much all bottom land. The soil seems to be a grey "gumbo" clay, sticks to everything and never seems to dry out except hottest summer months. Would a lime application help this type of soil?? Or maybe sub-soil around July? Seems like any rainfall just sits on top of the ground??? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!! Thanks


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## PaMike (Dec 7, 2013)

I got some ground like that...fun stuff. My gound lays next to a creek so I installed some tile lines.

Backfiled the lines with a good bit of crushed stone to aid in drainage.

In one field if took a good year plus for the clay soil to dry down. The ground still isn't "dry" but its sure better than it was.

On some of my earlier lines after a rain the tile line will barely have any water running but water would be standing on top of the field. The clay is so dense the water cant soak in.

On my later lines when I back filled(after adding the stone) I would back fill with a material like compost, or some top soil, or mix some straw or hay in with the clay. Any thing to break the clay up and allow the water to pass through the clay..


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## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

I'm thinking that the ground is a lot like of our river bottoms here that are loaded with "blue stick". Here's a couple of thoughts:

Probably the best investment would be tiling to get the ground to dry out. Get a couple of soil tests so you know what you need to apply for lime, potassium, phosphorous, etc. Maybe run a ripper over it to loosen it deeply. Then plant a crop that puts a lot of organic material in the ground so that the ground gets more porous. Maybe a winter cover crop like turnips that will also open the soil up.

Just some thoughts. Hope they help.

Ralph


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Sounds like our gumbo and ours has a blue clay base under it.

No matter what you do, it needs to dry out, wet ground is hard ground and water can't move thru hard ground.

We tiled ours on thirty foot centers, only place it as deep as the blue clay, lay it in the blue clay and you might as well have poured cement around it. Takes one year for one inch of rain to move one foot thru blue clay.

Then no till, ripping first might help but we never did. Cover crops are a must as well, maybe throw in some tillage radish when the time is right in your area. Earth worms love radish when it starts to decay, natures little plows they are.


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## hog987 (Apr 5, 2011)

Depending on where your at timothy might be a good thing to grow. It likes cool temperature and wet soil. I farm some heavy clay land. Have one spot where the water used to sit. Sometimes would have to cut the hay around this spot cause of standing water. We always put in a little hay seed mix in the fertilizer when we broadcast. Now that spot the timothy grows so thick just about stalls the tractor when the discbine hits it. Plus no more standing water.


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## vhaby (Dec 30, 2009)

You might consider installing drain lines as suggested above followed by applying several tons of gypsum and mixing it into the soil surface to flocculate the clay. The calcium in the gypsum will act to bind the clay particles together, making the soil more porous.


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