In March we had 6 inches of rain over 2 days. That resulted in our river bottom ground flooding, and all the good no-till residue on those fields washing up in a mat on the edges of the flooded area. We had about 4 acres covered with anywhere from 6 inches to 18 inches of corn stalks and soybean fodder.
What to do? You can’t plow it under that thick. You can’t run the no-till planter through stuff that thick. This is high organic matter soil, (think of peat bogs and Ireland where they cut this stuff into bricks and burn it), if you burn the residue you risk setting the soil itself on fire.
So we borrowed a couple big manure spreaders from our dairy farmer neighbors and started loading and spreading residue out over the field. 40 hours and some 400 loads later the job was done.
That’s me on the loader. Like the cool hat? After days out in the sun I was getting majorly sunburned and seeking shelter however I could find it.
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