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Danville, CA (petman2@yahoo.com)

I have read here several times that one should try to avoid tilling the soil and move to plowing or some other form of cultivation. My question then surrounds how one gets rid of the big dirt clods? I have clay soil so if I was to just plow, I would end up with dirt clods the size of soft balls. For this reason I have a tractor till the patch each year.

Am I right in thinking that plowing is reserved for those who have worked the patch long enough to make it "fluffy" on a regular basis? or is there some way to break those clods up? I am continuing to add quite a bit of gypsum and manure to help fluff the soil, but it will likely be a while before plowing alone would work if I am understanding this correctly.

2/5/2007 2:57:21 PM

Dummer Twp - Ontario

Do a search as an exact thread was on earlier

2/5/2007 4:38:40 PM

Mill Bay, British Columbia

Here are a couple of links at;

http://www.bigpumpkins.com/MsgBoard/ViewThread.asp?b=20&p=106355

http://www.bigpumpkins.com/MsgBoard/ViewThread.asp?b=3&p=180113

That will help!!

2/5/2007 4:55:47 PM

southwest MO

You could possibly disc the soil after plowing... There is chisel plow and moldboard plow... The only concencus I can come to on this subject is use tillage at a minimum. You want to break the soil up, but you dont want to pulverize it repeatedly and destroy the texture. You want to work materials into the soil but you dont want to run so many pieces of equipment over it that compaction is a problem. Some say tilage of any kind murders your worms, some say only use tillage when the worms are deep, some say tillage doesn't efect their worms one bit. Cover croping is a great way to improve soil, but to incorperate it, that involves tillage. If you till when things are too wet you do damage to the structure... If you till when things are too warm you loose excesive amounts of carbon in the form of CO2...There goes time and or money from compost. You are right though, the more properly aggregated your soil becomes the smaller and softer those clods will become.

2/5/2007 5:06:04 PM

Boulder County Colorado USA planet Earth

When I want to plow< I hook up the ex girlfriend and plow the field hahahah
capt

2/5/2007 10:52:44 PM

Danville, CA (petman2@yahoo.com)

LOL Captain Cold Weather

I am sorry guys, should have searched better than this. I am ashamed.

2/6/2007 12:53:48 AM

President - GPC

Captn, Can I borrow your X girl friend???......then again maybe I found a job my.....nevermind Im already in enough trouble.........LB.....why dont you stop me.....?

2/6/2007 9:51:33 AM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

I agree. Till organic & other physical amendments into that clay until it has the correct structure then switch to minimal or no-till.

2/6/2007 3:16:43 PM