Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Art Corbit" <art_c@cox.net>]

Hi Alan,

Beds that you have built up with compost and mulched and have them real soft
will be fine. You can pull the old plants and use them for mulch but you
can't do that in a 40 acre cotton field. Can you imagine cotton stalks waist
high that have stood all winter and you are planning on going in and
replanting another crop? Imagine how hard the ground would get if it wasn't
plowed up once and a while. I know as absolute fact no row crop does as good
as it should if you don't plow it a couple of times with a cultivator.

Can you imagine trying to run a cotton picker through a field with last
years stalks still standing? You couldn't do it. They have got to be
knocking the stalks down and chopping them up some way. I'll put it this
way, I couldn't do it and even if I could I wouldn't abuse my soil that way.

Art


----- Original Message -----
From: "Alan Whitaker" <alan@dunbrokeus.com>
To: "Healthy soil and sustainable growing"
<livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 02, 2006 6:00 PM
Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] No-till cotton


> Ken,
>
> I'm using no-till mulched permanent beds for vegetables.  I'm convinced
> that is he way to go.  But what is suggested for root crops?
> We grow a lot of sweet potatoes here and I mulch the bottoms heavy with
> straw and it suppresses the weeds.  But when we go to dig, it all gets
> turned under...........
>
>
>
> Ken Hargesheimer wrote:
>
> > Anyone who wants to see no-till cotton just come to Lubbock TX.  One
> > farmer has been at it almost 25 years now.  Another one started four
> > seasons ago and could not be happier.  I know these men personally.
> > Steve Groff, PA, [spoke at his farm day] who has been no-till corn,
> > etc for over 30 years. The guru  of no-till in the USA.
> >
>
>
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