What do I need?

I spent that first summer alternately picking rocks and tilling the soil with my 65 massey and an old mostly worn out JD 12' tandem field disc. I then planted a mixture of red, white, and Alsike clover.

Now after about 6 years, the weeds have taken over, and I would like to re-work the soil and replant. But now I've found that the disc is not aggressive or heavy enough to break through the sod after mowing it. You can hardly tell where the disc was.

Any ideas for what I could use? I'm worried that a plow would bury what little topsoil I have, and dig up tons and tons more rocks to boot. This is just a food plot for the wildlife, it does not need to be perfectly smooth, just worked up enough to get seeds planted again.

I've thought about removing the outer four sections of discs from my old one, and then weighting down what is left with rocks, but I'm skeptical of whether or not that will do the trick.

I do not have a farming background, and really have no idea what many different implements are called, or what their intended uses are.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Matt

I live near the town of Lake George, near Itasca State Park. Lime would be great, but it would be a real chore to get it back in there. My 65 Massey barely fits down the trail. I had to partially disassemble the 12' disc when I moved it in.

Like I said, the clover did very well for the first 3 years, and it has only been the past couple of years that the weeds have taken over.

Thanks!

Matt

I'm with Hugh on this one. Sometimes it is just better not to distrub the land.

If your he!!-bent on doing this, I'd just get a broadcast seeder, sling the seed this winter and then keep it mowed. The clover should eventually choke out the weeds.

Allan

I'm with Hugh on this one. Sometimes it is just better not to distrub the land.

If your he!!-bent on doing this, I'd just get a broadcast seeder, sling the seed this winter and then keep it mowed. The clover should eventually choke out the weeds.

Allan

After the river bottom was in full production he then started clearing a clay hill with stones. He then retired and this one became my baby. Believe me the money I spent on that first 10 acres of clay and rocks, also made it the last 10 acres of clay and rocks I ever cleared.

Ten years later a school teacher-part time farmer asked me to disk 20 acres of this type of soil for him. I spent all day with 100 hp tractor and 20' disk trying to make this decent. At the end of his teaching day he stopped in to see how I was doing. I said, " Jim are you sure your planting the right crop with oats seeded down to clover?" "WHY?" he asked. I said, "Just look at the beautiful stand of second generation spruce trees coming on your neighbors land on both side of this field."

My friend, by 1960 our forefathers had cleared most of land across North America fit for ag crops. They also cleared much that should have been left in trees. You just can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear.

I totally know where you are coming from about clearing too much land. But I truley believe this is an entirely different situation. Please understand that this is northern Minnesota, not wide open farm country. The average person living here (including myself) is extremely conservation minded.

My little 40 acres of land sits about smack dab in the middle of a huge 20,000 acre state forest. The entire area, even outside the state forest is heavily forested (the entire NE corner of Minnesota actually). Logging, replanting and re-growth are one, if not the most primary natural recources industry here.

Although the area is heavily forested, virtually none of the timber is virgin. We took care of most of the massive red and white pines in the 1800s and early 1900s. The habitat here today is nothing like it was prior to settlement. Even the type wildlife has changed.

Most wildlife, especially the white-tailed deer, are creatures that do not particularly favor areas that are strictly wooded nor strictly prarrie, but they do flourish in those areas of transition between the two. They need the heavy woods for cover, but they also need the fields for food.

Even the Minnesota department of natural recources promotes and have at least partially funded thousands of "small" clear-cuts for wildlife habitat improvement. We're not talking farm field here, but very small and secluded clearings.

My 10 acre clear-cut is not wide open, it is not just one big square or rectangle, but rather more like a meadow that meanders over small hills with many small fingers of bramble protruding out into the clearing. Of the ten acres, two of them were not dozed, and are coming back as thick Aspen/balsam re-growth. This area serves both as heavy cover, and a very valuable winter food source for the wildlife. There is also yet another small area that has been left for milkweed. You would be amazed at the number of Monarch butterflies there in the summertime.

In the past 5 or 6 years since this clearing was first planted in clover, the wildlife numbers have virtually exploded. The difference has been phenomenal. The clover did very well for the first two or three years, but then weeds such as Canadian thistle and pigweed began to take hold.

I already consider my project a huge success, it just needs a little tending to again.

Thanks for the advice folks!

Matt

Having said this your major problem remains to be those rocks. You can build top soil by adding nutrients and plowing down vegetation. It will just surprise you what can be achived with a mix of that little bit of good top soil you have mixed with the clay and organic matter. With the harsh winters you have in northern MN those rocks will keep coming up for years. Winter frosts just keep heaving them up. I've seen 2,500 ton of rocks per acre come off land like that. That my friend will cost a lot of money in 2005.

I used to operate in conjunction with my farm a custom mechanical rock picking business. Had two entirely different machines for different applications. One machine I had in cost $21. per hour just in pickup wear parts. Anyway you tackle it rock picking is expensive business.

I once had an engineer take me to a 10 acre site. He wanted 2' of rock free topsoil. I advised the first item he should get was pumping equipment. This was gravley soil with a lake nearby and level of soil was only 20' above lake water level. I advised that by the time we achived 2' of stone free soil, we would be below water level. He didn't believe me. I picked 45,000 ton of rocks off that 10 acres, lowered the entire 10 acres 2', and he still had more stones in the top 2' than you would ever use ag equipment on. Needless to say he gave up, and this project was funded by one of our major international corperations.

I'll talk to one of my neighbors down the road a few miles. He owns an exotic animal farm and also has a small herd of beef cattle. He may be able to supply what I need. Another task will be to locate a manure spreader that I can buy or borrow that will fit down the narrow winding trail behind my tractor.

The rocks are amazing. I spent the entire first summer hand picking them from the clearing, day after day, load after load. It didn't cost me much money other than for the gas I used in my machinery to haul them to the pile, but my back, arms, and fingers definitely paid a fine price.

My rock pile is about 30-40 feet in diameter, and about 6-8 feet high. The dozer also pushed a few of the Volkswagon sized ones into the pile. By the way, it totally surprised me how many critters ended up calling that rock pile home!

I'm not concerned with anything from softball sized and smaller, but like you say, there are a few larger sized ones that have worked their way up to the surface again.

Thanks again!

Matt

Good advise by the others.

Work the soil up in spring with your disk - will work it up good. In dry fall now, that clay is baked like concrete, you won't be able to do much with it with anything. A tiller maybe, but it will beat like heck....

Too cold now up there to bother spraying anything. Back in early August or so you coulda sprayed Roundup. In early spring, when you can still drive on the frost but it is almost gone, you wcoulda then just spread the clover seeds. As the ground thaws & freezes over the rest of spring, the seeds will work themselves into the cracks & mud that forms, and it grows nicely.

Perhaps you can spray the grasses out after such planting as someone suggested.

Honestly, if you have the fertility/ ph (lime) right, clover likes to surprise a person & come back real strong on it's own if you can spray out the weeds & give it a chance....

Many different directions o go, for a food plot you should get one of them to work for you. :)

--->Paul