WORKING WITH CLAYS

Leonard L. Rance, Wawota, Saskatchewan

Our farm is southwest of Winnipeg irk the Red River Valley and the soil type is classed as Osborne Clay.

We started experimenting with zero till in 1978 using a Haybuster 1206 double disc on some fields, then no tilling the whole farm from 1981 - 1992. In 1985 we changed from the disc drill to an Amazon 975 hoe drill.

I think that excess moisture conditions have probably caused us the most anxiety over the years. It is very important to have good surface drainage, and with one foot drop to the mile that isn't easy to accomplish. Over the years we have worked at connecting the potholes with small ditches and on a normal year we can run 90% of any standing water off in a reasonable length of time. Of course this wasn't true this year when the municipal drainage ditches couldn't handle the excess rainfall. We changed from the double disc drill to the hoe drill because of the sticky soil.

Even the hoe drill had sow problems with mud plugging the boots, and with the design of the depth control wheels. These were steel wheels about twelve inches in diameter and four inches wide with a mud scraper on them. In excessively wet conditions these would sometimes slide, but in these conditions discers wouldn't have worked either. I encouraged Amazon to replace the steel wheels with a rubber tired wheel, but to no avail because of too much up keep. They did, however, experiment with wheels designed out of rods which worked worse than those we had. I adapted one run with the wheel from a combine pickup which I felt worked much better. Of course, proper straw and chaff spreading has a great bearing on how wet the soil stays the next spring. It is much easier to spread narrower swath properly, and to help with this we would harrow the straw in the fall three to five times and preferably on a warm sunny afternoon.

For about two years we experimented with applying all the fertilizer with a drill in the fall. The next spring the grain seemed to be slower germinating and didn't look as healthy for two to three weeks. I assumed this was because of not having the nutrition right with the seed. We went back to putting most of the fertilizer with the seed. On extremely wet falls and when we needed more nitrogen than could be applied with the seed, we added liquid nitrogen with an anhydrous type applicator. The openers were about three quarters of an inch wide and about fifteen inches apart. This implement seemed to break the mulch a little without really knocking down much stubble, Yet it seemed to make it a little dryer for the drill in the spring.

One of the benefits of zero till after five or six years is that the soil is not as sticky - due, I think, to the increase organic matter. We started asking for an organic matter reading when soil testing for fertilizer requirements in 1986. The average organic matter test was 3.5 - 4.0% on the whole farm. Six years later the average had risen about one percent. Soils people tell me originally these might have tested 8 – 10%. So with eighty years of cultivation we reduced this to four percent, and then to observe a one percent increase in only six years is very encouraging to me. Also in the spring of 1992 there were earthworms returning to the fields which I think is another good sign.

We also found that some weeds like foxtail barley are favored in a no till system. We found Quackgrass to be less of problem once we stopped spreading it with the cultivator .

Spring harrowing after seeding caused me a problem one year. I sowed Canolainto good barley stubble very shallow and the harrowed it once on a warm dry afternoon. The harrowing broke the anchored stubble off and two days later with sixty - seventy MPH winds the Stubble drifted off the field and the soil started to blow. We cultivated the field very lightly and then reseeded it.Usually the drill leaves enough roughness so you can harrow, especially when seeding cereals a little deeper.

In 1980 as in 1988 we were dried right out and elected to fallow 400 of 800acres. We cultivated the fallow twice in July and hoped it would grow enough to cover the soil for the winter and spring, however, there was some soil drifting in the spring. We decided to do that again, so in 1988 we left all that was seeded, electing not to reseed what looked thin. We missed out on any reseeding benefits through our in e program, but none of our soil suffered wind erosion. Actually, the wheat yielded from 12 - 18 Bu. per acre, the barley about 20, flax 5, and the oats about 8 bushel. Not great yields, I know, but we still had all our soil

Another thing I-noticed, and this pertains to most soil types, was that once we were brave enough to sell the cultivator saved a lot of fuel -- like about 30% less, to say nothing of less tractor hours and less of my valuable time. Our 145 HP tractor had 3600 hours in eight years or about 450 hours per year for seeding, spraying, and combining 80 acres. To off set some of these advantages you probably have a somewhat high chemical bill, but that varies from year to year.

All in all - it is possible to zero till in soils. It keeps all the soil right where it was created and we can start to rebuild the organic matter. The farm can and should be left to the next generation, complete with soil and with a higher fertility level than when we acquired it.