YouTube is something else for sure. There's an occasional gem but you'd better wear your hip waders to find them.
I've got three plots on one 100 acre property and each is completely different in soil composition, depth, and moisture retention. Only one responds well to mow and throw. The others require exposing soil. One is such hard clay that even radishes struggle to form without tilling first. Being hill country none are particularly easy to get to with equipment so I'm always trying different methods, seeds, and timing. I'm also not a farmer so no background knowledge of agriculture.
Everything I've learned so far has been trial/error. Some ideas have come from YouTube but most of the stuff I've tried from YouTube videos has been a bust. So far what works every time without fail is exposing loose soil, putting seed on it, and getting a good rain right away. In the several years I've been plotting, I've yet to experience soil degradation and/or erosion from tilling. For hunting plots where no harvest is occurring, I'm not convinced that stuff is the scorched earth issue YouTube experts suggest.
Excellent point and examples.
Of course, I realize these food plot videos are geared more towards the average hunter/landowner in the average situation - creating/growing food plots in "normal" soil conditions. But there are other situations where the "rules" for "normal" soil don't apply. For instance, I fully understand the ideas behind no-till planting. Turned, exposed soil has a MUCH higher rate of erosion in heavy summer thunderstorms than untilled ground. Exposed, tuned soil, once it dries out, loses topsoil through wind erosion (that dust you see is your topsoil blowing away). The layer of decomposing thatch on an untilled plot holds moisture very well and that moisture does not evaporate as fast as moisture in turned soil. The decomposing thatch of an untilled field holds a much better population of the microbes necessary for nutrient transfer from soil to plant root.
HOWEVER, for those trying to grow food plots in the ridge-and-hollow sections of TN (and that's a big area), we are trying to grow long, narrow food plots on long, narrow ridges that exist because of the rock layers near the surface that prevent the ridge from eroding away. That rocky soil does not allow moisture to trickle down below the thatch. Yes, the thatch holds moisture, but directly below it is very dry, rocky soil that plant roots cannot penetrate and where soil moisture and nutrients are severely lacking. This isn't so much a problem in late fall and winter, when slow, steady rains and low evaporation rate weather allows moisture to slowly work its way down into the soil, but in summer these thin, thatch-only moisture layers can get dry fast. This makes growing summer crops a real crapshoot. A wet summer, you might be OK. A dry summer, which we get regularly, and your crops are a failure. The only way to get moisture and soil nutrients deeper into these rocky ridge-top soils is the break it up and turn it at least 6-8 inches deep. However, now you have all of the real problems of tilled ground versus untilled ground.
I've been at this rocky ridge-top soil food plotting business for many years, and I STILL don't have an answer as to what is the best system. In fact, after years of summer crop failures, I had given up trying to grow summer crops (the better moisture conditions in late fall and winter are a snap for food plots - the typical cool-season crops can handle the thinner soils and better moisture conditions just fine). But once I obtained the ability to turn the soil (a tractor and tiller powerful enough to break up the rocky soils), I've begun trying summer crops again. But I'm still not sure what will work best. Turn the soil every planting season, spring and fall, and suffer all of the real problems of turned ground, but get the benefit of deeper soil moisture? Only turn the soil once a year, spring or fall? Only turn the soil every couple of years? I don't know the answer yet.
