Market Farming

[<sunnfarm AT netscape.com>]

Crimping wont work on perennial grasses. They just grow back faster. Don't confuse them with annuals like winter rye which die with or without crimping. Old hayfields are full of surprises mostly perennial weeds just waiting for a chance to compete once the grasses are gone. I tried this many years ago on a 14 acre hillside farm I rented. The weeds out grew the crop Pumpkins, and made me look like a fool. I solved the problem the next year with Roundup and grew a great crop without any weed competition. Even on properly done rolled/crimped mulch plots if the mulch decomposes too fast like on a rainy year you end up with a lot of bare ground that gets weedy and impossible to cultivate... Bob.

--- KAKerby AT aol.com wrote:

From: KAKerby AT aol.com
To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [Market-farming] can I crimp an old hayfield to create a no-till mulched cropping area?
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2011 21:53:10 -0500 (EST)

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

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