no till experiment time...

[MickThompson]

The corn is picked and the stalks are drying out, but there is some growing season left yet, so it's time to try something a little different. A week ago saturday was the last measurable rain I got, and it was a measley 0.1". I want to replant peas and beans into the corn rows, but the ground is pretty hard from lack of rain. Seed is cheap, i mowed down the weeds between the rows and just top sowed the seed. With a good chance of rain each day in the foreseeable future. we'll see what happens in a week or so. 1 row got yard-long beans, 1 row KY wonderbeans, 2 rows of crowder peas, and a row of crowders and wonderbeans mixed. I've got a decent amount of thatch from the crabgrass and corn shucks so that should help.

 

[catman529]

Cool deal, I'm assuming the stalks will support the beans?


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[MickThompson]

Beans and peas are up good, but could desperately use some rain. There must be a bubble or something over the house. Every pop up storm has missed so far. The corn stalks have already dried out and are falling over but I'm getting a few to vine up them. I'll probably start top sowing my winter cover this weekend or next week. I'll go with crimson and wheat, then fill in the thin spots with turnips around the end of September. I will still be picking right up til the frost.

 

[WTM]

i know what the bubble feels like, i swear that Birdsong creek stopped every bit of northern rain that we had this year. yep time to get out the cover cops. do you know if barley does very well in tennessee?

 

[MickThompson]

I left work to a pretty good shower and had high hopes. As I got closer to the house, I drove out of the rain and then the roads dried up. I got about 7 little drips last night form a drizzle off the edge of the storm. I did a quick google and saw where UT had been doing variety trials with it, so I would imagine it will do fine for cover. Why barley instead of the other winter grains?

 

[WTM]

i usually do winter wheat and turnips for erosion control and biomass but winter wheat is to much work to kill off in spring and im trying to get away from roundup(my wife uses enough of that around the yard). turnips do not do well in parts of my garden for some reason. same for winter rye and rye can suppress weed seeds AS WELL AS GARDEN seeds as it first decomposes in spring.

i was going to plant forage radishes to help keep soil loose but i got to reading an article about a no till farmer that tried them and it didnt pan out and broccoli and cabbage doesnt do well with it. so he used barley/austrian winter peas and they produce lots of biomass and winter kills very easy and decomposes very well. also when planted as a winter cover, barley roots can reach down 6.5 feet. sounds kind of perfect for what i want to do. so i im going to go with either barley/crimson for 100 percent coverage or barley/winter peas and fill the bare spots in with turnips like you.(my wife likes turnip greens)

so by feb/march it should be ready to go for cool season crops and still have decomposed/biomass cover for warm season crops.

 

[MickThompson]

Looks like you are onto something with barley. I wonder how hard it will be to get seed?
https://www.ag.ndsu.edu/winterstorm/win ... y-and-oats
I don't do much with winter crops except for greens and carrots. My attempts at broccoli just made for happy bugs. If you are planning on growing good biomass, I would get it down with the next rain so it can put on as much growth as possible before freezing out. I think that peas also tend to winter kill easier than clover, but the legumes melt into the soil as soon as they are cut so it wouldn't bother me if the crimson overwintered.

 

[MickThompson]

I just found barley on Hancock seed with free shipping on small bags btw.

 

[WTM]

I just found barley on Hancock seed with free shipping on small bags btw.

thanks for the heads up.