Sunday, October 20, 2013

no till soybean field

things have been a bit out of hand this fall and i missed the beans in the no till bean field behind big box stores being harvested ( the field is still for sale so who know what spring will bring..the monoculture saga could end here )...there were a few beans laying around out there after the harvest...but nothing like the corn that was left last autumn or the multiplicity of germinating beans i found in the field next to the supermarket last year...a much more efficient operation and from what i can see the harvester shredded the non-bean parts of the plants and returned them to the field...that along with the corn cobs and corn stems still left in the field will make a good mulch and return some nutrients ( there is between nine and twelve pounds of nitrogen per ton of corn silage according to the usda...nutrients are nutrients ) as well as protect the soil from winter erosion...i haven't found a farmer to talk to but if i met up with this one i would have to tell them i am impressed...odds are that if this field is planted in anything next spring it will be dense yellow number two field corn ( monoculture is the way we do things in the hoosier state and corn and beans are the rotation ) if it goes in in a no till field i will be even more impressed.

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