Market Farming

[KAKerby AT aol.com]

Wacky question of the day.  I'm renting a parcel of old hayfield this year, and the plan was to manage most of it for livestock pasture, but set aside a few acres for those small grains we spoke about awhile back.  I figured I'd cut the existing vegetation, then shallow--till to bring up the grass' rhizomes, and do repetitive shallow tillage all through the hot dry summers to dry out the rhizomes and as much of the weed seedbank as possible.  Then plant in fall.  I will probably still do that on at least a portion of the parcel.

 

But I got to wondering today if I was creating work for myself.  I have been reading about crimpers being used to knock down and kill tall, rank grassy cover crops such as rye.  Then plant directly into that dying biomass, which ultimately would serve as a weed mulch.  Supposedly it's a wonderful way to keep high-value fruit crops like tomatoes and pumpkins off the soil.  All sorts of glowing reviews when used on annual cover crops.  I looked for information about how well crimping might work on perennial hayfields, but the only info relevant to hayfields was using crimpers to speed up hay curing, or used to renovate hayfields for new hay plantings.  Nothing about actually killing the perennial grass species just like it kills the annual grass species.

 

Has anyone heard of crimpers being used to kill hayfields, to convert those hayfields into cropland?  If so, I'd love to hear more about how well it worked (or didn't work).  Thanks all.......

Kathryn Kerby

frogchorusfarm.com

Snohomish, WA