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  • From: "Bill Shoemaker" <wshoemak AT inil.com>
  • To: "Market Farming" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Rye cover crop; was Mulch
  • Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2007 07:15:55 -0600

John

That was a great idea using the rotovator without the pto hooked up. We've used a cultipacker to knock the rye down but struggled with the crimping issue. I'll have to find a rotovator to use. We were looking at pumpkins on rye, and have for several years. The biggest challenge has been mechanized planting, mostly because we haven't been able to find the funds for purchasing a no-till transplanter. But we've had the chance to observe pumpkin plant growth on the rye cover crop. We've had excellent weed control too. Even more important, disease pressure has diminished, particularly fruit rots. They've been productive and with the new powdery mildew resistant varieties the disease becomes even less of a factor. We just need to find a way to make stand establishment more reliable. Then I think we'd have a great mulch system, at least for space-loving crops.

Bill Shoemaker, Sr Research Specialist, Food Crops
University of Illinois - St Charles Horticulture Research Center
www.nres.uiuc.edu/faculty/directory/shoemaker_wh.html



I have a friend here in Wisconsin that grew winter rye, rolled it down
using an old cultipacker and then a rotovator without the PTO hooked up
(leaving the tines to just roll and crimp the rye stems). He then hand
transplanted pumpkins and winter squash using a spade. He then sat back
to see the results and compare them with another planting on black
plastic and with drip tape. Severe drought followed and the "no-till"
squash just sat there. When rains finally came, the plants took off and
did yield fruit (but not as much as the crop on plastic with
irrigation). Weed control was excellent, however. The grower plans to
continue to experiment with this system and may eventually buy/build a
roller/crimper. Seems like an idea that has significant potential.

-John

TxBeeFarmer wrote:
Steve,

Actually, I do live close to Midland/Odessa. I'm north of Big Spring. The
idea of planting clover sounds good - where can I get the kind of seeds
you're talking about? When's the best time to plant it without irrigation?
I've also thought of planting wheat and knocking it down as a mulch too, but
not sure how to do that either, unless I get a no-till planter. But am
thinking anything I grow and knock down won't be thick enough to do any
good. As far as walkways, I only have skipped rows for a trailer to go
down. Those are easy to mowed with the shredder or run down with an onion
blade or disk. Really can't plant just the skip rows - only have a seed
slinger for small seeds. Yes, I'd like to know of some local people who
have straw bales.

Thanks
TxBeeFarmer (Mark)
West Texas Zone 7b


----- Original Message ----- From: "Steve Bridges" <steve AT texasgrown.com>
To: "'Market Farming'" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2007 10:05 PM
Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Mulch



Howdy Mark, here's a couple of thoughts...

On using hay, if you get what is commonly referred to as 'clean' hay, then
it's highly likely that you'll be getting hay that was sprayed with a weed
killer (Grazon, 2-4D, piclaram) that will stunt or kill your veggie plants
when you plant into the hay. An easy way to discern if hay has been
sprayed
is to grind some up, mix it half and half with potting soil and plant some
bean seeds into a pot. If the bean seeds develop their second set of true
leaves without curling or stunting then you'll know there is no herbicide
in
the hay. Chances are this type of clean hay will not have a load of weed
seeds in it...

If you're getting hay that some farmers call 'organic' which is
non-fertilized and neglected (organic by neglect, not Certified), then
you're probably buying hay that will have several generations of weed
seeds
in it. The few months of weed suppression you'll gain will not be worth
the
years of newly inoculated weed seeds that you'll have to deal with.

Being in West Texas, chances are you might be able to find a farmer that
bales his wheat straw, which makes an excellent mulch and is going to have
far fewer weed seeds in it than hay. If you're around the Midland/Odessa
area I can guide you to a few farmers that even have Certified Organic
wheat
straw for sale.

I would suggest that you check out a book called Lasagna Gardening for
tips
on how to plant into a layered, or mulched bed. See
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Organic-Gardening/1999-04-01/Lasagna-Gardenin
g.aspx It's gardening, but lots of good tips and growth for organic
agriculture have come from organic horticulture.

One thing that you might try is using a long season clover to plant in the
walkways to keep the weeds down. In a field trial of 29 different cover
crops last year I found that red and strawberry clovers keep even Johnson
grass from returning in the summer. These were huge trials of each
variety,
40x800 feet, but where we had these clovers planted there was very little
weed pressure all the way through the following summer. This year I'm
trialing this as between-row plantings in cellulose and plastic mulched
beds
to see if it will keep Bermuda and Johnson grass at bay. Also, I've rowed
up
my beds for next years corn, planted these clovers and will strip-till to
plant the corn next year. I'm thinking that it's going to work judging
from
what I saw in the trials last year...

Another thought is that, if you've got the land, you can grow your own
mulch
crops such as a fast growing sudan, that you can cut and bale 2-3 times,
before it goes to seed, then you don't have to worry about what you might
be
bringing in from another farm.
~
Weeds be suppressed,,,never gone!

~~~~~~~~~~
Steve Bridges
Texas farmer


-----Original Message-----
From: market-farming-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:market-farming-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of TxBeeFarmer
Sent: Monday, December 03, 2007 9:45 AM
To: Market Farming
Subject: [Market-farming] Mulch

I'd like to try putting down mulch over my garden to reduce weeds and help
the soil. It's about 3 acres, but I'm really not sure how to get it done.
Also not sure how to plant a garden on it.

Let me explain a little about my location, the soil, and how the garden is
taken care of now. It's in west Texas with a rainfall of approx. 17
inches/yr. with very little or no irrigation because the water must be
hauled in. The soil is a sandy loam that tends to develop "hard pan" if
not

plowed. So, each Winter the stalk residue is shred down and disked
lightly
to turn everything under. In the spring, it's deep disked, then plowed to
create 36 inches rows. Planting is done with a 4 row buster planter on
the
bed. Weeds are either hoed or plowed using knives or sweeps.

The only mulches available are large round bales of oats, hay grazer, red
top cane, alfalfa, or similar. It's not practical for me to get mulch
from
town. I don't have a dump truck and they don't deliver.

So it looks like hay is my only choice.
But, how can it be put down and how do you avoid growing a field of
whatever

kind of hay is put down? And how do you get it down? Should I disk
before
putting the mulch down? Should the mulch go down in the Fall or in the
Spring? How deep should it be? How can I make rows and plant without
covering up the mulch? Should I row it up, put the mulch down, then
plant?
As you can see, I'm having trouble understanding how this is done? Seems
the devil is in the details.

Perhaps I'm looking at this all wrong. Need some help here folks.

Thanks for your help.

TxBeeFarmer (Mark)
West Texas Zone 7b

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--
John Hendrickson
Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems
University of Wisconsin-Madison
1535 Observatory Drive
Madison, WI 53706
608-265-3704
www.cias.wisc.edu

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