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Your issue is moisture & lack of fertilizers. I would not want to plow & re-establish a crop every year. That will be your hard part, getting something rooted. I would do the manure thing, most any type, as soon as you can. That will help with all types of soil nutrition. As well it helps hold moisture. Old straw or hay or grass clippings that has no other value will also help build the soil, hold moisture real well. Note that both manure & straw will introduce weeds.... Just how it is. I would try to establish a bit of growth this year. Where I live first frost _could_ happen this Thursday, but should in a couple weeks anyhow. So, it is getting _real_ late here anyhow. Rye is the toughest bugger, I'd plant that & have my fingers crossed for moisture (of course I've had 6 inches of rain this month already, I need it dry to do any harvest!). If you are in a milder climate, you can try to establish a real cover crop. If colder climate, just do the rye now, & rework & put in a real crop next spring. More manure next spring would be good. For a real crop, I would put in a light amount of small grain (rye, oats, wheat - whatever, would only need a bu an acre) and alfalfa. I'd pick a cheap one. You could also plant clover, and grasses with all this. Don't get too carried away, but a pasture mix type of thing. The grain will sprout quick & offer shade & weed control; the alfalfa/clover will come on in a month & offer soil building & N in 3 months; the grasses will come on next year & be a sod for you eventually. The alfalfa will do you the most good. Let it grow. Let it get 5 years+ old, and it will send it's roots very deep, several feet, and it will pull up nutrients from down deep, as well as adding it's root mass to the organic matter of your soil - help with moisture rention. Alfalfa & clovers add N to the soil, so you will build your soil's value. Less cutting of the alfalfa will allow it to grow deeper, bigger roots, and add more N. Cutting often will make it use up it's root stores.... Most any of the ideas will work, but it will be _real_ hard to establish a crop. You _need_ manure or a whole lot of mixed commercial fertilizer, and you need to get lucky with rains to get this growth started. May take you several tries as things dry out & die. You will _have_ to catch a rainy period on sandy soils with no top soil. Very difficult. Once you get something growing, I'd hate to plow it up real quick & have to try again. I'd let it grow, add some manure once or 2wce a year, & let the roots build up. Not sure of your intentions for the plot, if you need it in a year, or it will just be grass for the future, but this would build it about the best. I would not try to take hay off it for several years, it needs to rot it's growth down for more organic matter in the soil. Very hard to bring up organic matter, adding manure or straw helps, but takes a lot of N to break the vegitation down, so you need the alfalfa or clover to keep the N coming. You could lightly graze the field in a year or more, as the critters return the manure to the field, but go real light on the grazing, don't stress the plants. They will be fragile in the sandy bare sub-soil. Where I live, there is typically 120 feet of clay subsoil from what the glaciers scraped off of Canada, so I have a lot easier time of it - fertilizer or manure, wait for just before a rain, plant, & all will be well - can treat it like any other ground in about a year. :) You will have problems with the light soil, need to build it. --->Paul
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