diamond hunter
Well-Known Member
Besides hard labor and child slave labor ect,how do I get 291 million baseball sized and smaller rocks out of a 2 acre field?
Food Plots Rocks
- Thread starter diamond hunter
- Start date
DoubleRidge
Well-Known Member
For loose rocks, sticks and roots I've used a 3pt landscape rake before. But once it becomes full of trash it will become like a blade and you'll be dragging topsoil...so do small areas at a time.
Also...I don't own one but you may be able to rent a harley rake which can be effective at collecting rocks without moving as much top soil.
Also...I don't own one but you may be able to rent a harley rake which can be effective at collecting rocks without moving as much top soil.
deerhunter10
Well-Known Member
If you have that much rock stop working it up and start no tilling it. If there's that many on top there double or triple the amount below it. They make rock rakes and attachments for tractors and skid steers. Could try a harley rake if you can get your hands on one.
diamond hunter
Well-Known Member
Im thinking some kids and some money.
BSK
Well-Known Member
I've almost given up fighting my rock fields. I suspect I will attempt a full no-till no-drill planting sequence next year.
Omega
Well-Known Member
I was the same way, I had an area between two hills widened by a bulldozer, turned out great, until heavy rains turned it into a rock field.
Originally it looked like this
Opened up, after a heavy down pour all those rocks started surfacing.
Frustrated, I just broadcast seed corn and it filled in rather nicely.
Now, since I use it as a range too, I just lay down grass seed. I use the box blade to level it out some now and then, and remove some of the larger rocks, which keep showing up no matter how many I remove.
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BSK
Well-Known Member
That little valley strip food plot looks great Omega! I've got one just like it. 10-15 yards wide and 150 yards long. My only "bottomland" food plot.
BSK
Well-Known Member
Every planting technique has its positives and negatives. But after dealing with summer and fall droughts the last two years, Popcorn and Mega have convinced me to stick with the no-till method (and for my fields, that also mean no-drill because the ground is too hard and rocky for a drill). The no-till method won't produce as productive of a plot as one that has been tilled and gets adequate rain throughout the growing season, but how often do we get adequate rain through any growing season these days? Very rarely. To have some type of plot growing in fall, I'm going to stick with the throw-and-mow no-till methodology, even though that reduces the plots' productivity in those years when we get a lot of fall rain (the minority).
Spring/summer = beans and Sorghum
Fall = Crimson Clover, wheat, Buckwheat
Spring/summer = beans and Sorghum
Fall = Crimson Clover, wheat, Buckwheat
wildlifefarmer
Well-Known Member
Corn this year drilled with 2 row nt drill into mature crimson clover. Now cc is coming back In between the rows.
BSK
Well-Known Member
What an awesome plot wildlifefarmer! What I wouldn't give for actual soil instead of the chert/rock fields I have on these ridgetops.
wildlifefarmer
Well-Known Member
That's been 10 years in the making of the soil. No lime added in the past two years just fertilizing. Only time it did not do well was during last summer's (1 yr ago) drought. But it is all about timing. Mother Nature can be cruel. I'm just glad I don't farm for a living!!
Have you looked into biochar? Saw a podcast where they were talking about how the Incas ? transformed poor soil into super fertile soil using biochar. I figure they used some form of prescribed fire on the fields regularly to create the carbon.
I've picked rocks out of some fields for 15 years and still have more.
