# Soil Health



## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

From AgNews.

Regards, Mike

http://www.agweb.com/article/boost-nutrient-supplying-power-darrell-smith/


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## hay wilson in TX (Jan 28, 2009)

Soil health is a diffcult concept to grasp.

Not plowing to maintain soil health.

Planting a crop that is not harvested by the farmer.

A cover crop?

Not even grazing the off season crop.

Being able to visualize an unharvested crop that results in profitability.

Here is an example from 50 years ago that was abandoned.

A cotton grower planted Vetch half way up the sides of his beds.

A few weeks before time to plant cotton cut the vetch off the bed with row disk leaving the trash to rot in the middles, the roots left undisturbed in the bed.

Plant the cotton again for another season into the top of the beds.

The kicker was rather than growing less than half a bale/A of cotton harvest 2 bales/A.

No water lost to flooding during the Spring Rains.

All this with saved cotton seed. Weed control close to being zero. In the days of hoe hands the weed control system. Cotton selling at 40¢/lb. Rather than $100/A gross have $400/A gross.

I wonder if the same economics would prevail today.


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## endrow (Dec 15, 2011)

I know it takes a special effort to grow cover crops. We work like mad to plant earlier and harvest a little earlier.We no in our area we have the row crops off and plant a cover crop by the first week in november. The cover crops are that valuable to us that we make an extra effort to do that. My friend tells me when he's done with harvest he's going hunting in the heck with the cover crops.


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

This has been a real good year for late planted cover crops here.....my wheat has done very well this month.

Regards, Mike


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## endrow (Dec 15, 2011)

When you are planting late cover crops you can find low quality wheat @ $3to4 per bu. Some of these performance cover crop blend are upwards to $30 per 50# bag rate to plant is 2to 3 bags per acre I will not risk that kind of money on late plantings


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## Bgriffin856 (Nov 13, 2013)

Trying it out for the first time on ten acres for grazing. Seeded some bin run wheat after we took corn off. Seeded it in mid October. Took 10-15 days to germinate and is only three or four inches tall. Almost can see the rows. I've been worrying about it making it through winter


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## 8350HiTech (Jul 26, 2013)

Bgriffin856 said:


> Trying it out for the first time on ten acres for grazing. Seeded some bin run wheat after we took corn off. Seeded it in mid October. Took 10-15 days to germinate and is only three or four inches tall. Almost can see the rows. I've been worrying about it making it through winter


Three or four inches should be plenty for wheat. Half an inch ought to do it, especially if you get some snow cover to insulate the ground.


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