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Clay compacted soil

Fueledtohunt

New Member
I have a new area I am trying to amend for planting, miscathus, switch and hybrid sorghum screen. Some of the area I tilled up is heavy compacted clay and some is pretty decent black dirt that s pretty chunky. Whats the best way to amend this soil? Both for clay as well as the chunks. I want this area to eventually be fluffy black or close to black soil.I have read that gympsum works but not sure the most economical way to improve this soil and seedbed for planting. Any thoughts?
 
I have a new area I am trying to amend for planting, miscathus, switch and hybrid sorghum screen. Some of the area I tilled up is heavy compacted clay and some is pretty decent black dirt that s pretty chunky. Whats the best way to amend this soil? Both for clay as well as the chunks. I want this area to eventually be fluffy black or close to black soil.I have read that gympsum works but not sure the most economical way to improve this soil and seedbed for planting. Any thoughts?
Soil test & I’ll bet u that u will need LIME.
Second….. build organic matter. Period. This involves:
Not tilling & if u do- do it lightly, very shallow.
Put high residue cover crops in there. Soil builders…, examples are rye, corn, sorghum/Egyptian wheat, switch, etc. U are planting several of those already so that’s great. Keep things growing there as much of the year as possible and always have soil covered with residue.
I have not tried gypsum but it’s possible. I think u will have better luck with lime & various cover crops like above. & maybe additional potassium which will help as well.
 
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Second….. build organic matter. Period. ...
Put high residue cover crops in there. Soil builders…, examples are rye, corn, sorghum/Egyptian wheat, switch, etc. ... Keep things growing there as much of the year as possible and always have soil covered with residue.
...
Stealing parts of Skip's reply above, I completely agree with the above, especially the bolded parts. We just planted 1000 rhizomes of Miscanthus this past weekend. (Our first time doing so.)

Our method, modeled after an approach that I saw here on IW about a week ago now, was to:
1. Mow whatever was present down pretty short. Most of which, I had mowed last fall and/or over a month ago.
2. Till our strips to be planted.
3. Run a "middle buster" single blade plow through the 6' wide tilled strip, two times, making two furrows about 24" apart from one another.
4. Lay rhizomes in the "troughs" spaced about 18"ish from one another.
5. Using my new, handy dandy landscaping rake 3 point attachment, cover the troughs by scraping the loose soil back over the rhizomes. I would make a couple of passes to get it fairly smooth.
6. Drive the ATV over the recovered troughs to pack the soil some over the newly planted rhizomes.

This method seems to have worked very well, although time will tell as these things grow...or not. But...we had VERY different experiences with different areas that we planted.

The key difference was where we planted that HAD NOT been planted in a rye mix at multiple and various times over the years it was "clumpy" and it was hard to get good, consistent furrows because we have heavy clay soil too.

However, where we planted that HAD BEEN in rye/clover mix over the years, that soil worked up like butter. The difference in soil quality, tilth, between the non-rye areas and the rye areas was very dramatic.
 
Soil test & I’ll bet u that u will need LIME.
Second….. build organic matter. Period. This involves:
Not tilling & if u do- do it lightly, very shallow.
Put high residue cover crops in there. Soil builders…, examples are rye, corn, sorghum/Egyptian wheat, switch, etc. U are planting several of those already so that’s great. Keep things growing there as much of the year as possible and always have soil covered with residue.
I have not tried gypsum but it’s possible. I think u will have better luck with lime & various cover crops like above. & maybe additional potassium which will help as well.
Thanks for the advice. You make some very good points:) The crazy part about it all is when I got the soil test back the PH was a 7? I was like whaaaa? crazy. This was soil that was growing under trees that I ripped out. Apparently theres a new product out too now thats called penecal. Its supposed to adjust the soil chemistry of the clay like soils and help them become more aerated. Check it out:)

 
Need a good soil test from someone like Midwest Labs before can provide any input here...
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Fixing these areas for few years now. Was “bad” when started. Got all the lacking nutrients on this year + added a ton of organic matter. I will get these soils to 6-7%+ organic matter in time. 100%
 
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