Hi! Per Garp/NH, Has it occurred that you may not have a suitable site for what you want to do?
By this I mean would it be better to obtain a more suited site? If you are stuck with the site:- Hard pan usually means several things are involved. Clay, not enough soil carbon, reduced soil biota activity, lack of air/ oxygen in the soil, water saturated soil for at least part of the year, not enough calcium in the soil, heavy traffic, either machinery or stock on wet and depleted soil. Clay has the ability to cling together and form tough blocks. Great for making adobe or pise houses. Increased soil carbon and increased soil biota will help, but in the short term use one to four tonnes of gypsum to the hectare, will break the clay and allow water penetration and largely break the pan without ripping. If you trench, you will most likely loose your soil into the lower regions and bring the clay to the surface. It will also tend to make a place for water to lay and rot the roots. I would not do it. Try gypsum first. Soil carbon and soil biota activity are inter-related. In Oz we have very low soil carbon and are for ever looking for ways of adding carbon. Coal dust from a coal washing facility/ some fly ashes from power stations, composts of high carbon materials etc can be used if available. With all these it is most important to have enough nitrogen in the soil to allow the soil biota to use these. Growing legume cover crops is the best way to do this. Do not get sucked into chemical nitrogen, most of it is not in a form the soil/ plants can use. Other wise it is a matter of growing as much cover crops etc and allowing it incorporate. This may be just mowing and allowing to lay on top, or incorporating with tillage. If chopped finely and sprayed with the compost preps, they will break down and enter the soil surprisingly quickly. My preference is low till/ no till. To get the soil biota going, some dilute molasses or other sugar sprayed in the cut cover crop with the preps will really help. Soil oxygenation will tend to come with the use of gypsum and improved soil carbon and soil activity. One can use a chisel plough, but I prefer to let the soil biota do it. Water stagnation may be site related, but if it is related to the pan, it will improve as the effect of the above comes into play. Calcium will come from the application of gypsum. The test for enough calcium is to walk around in really wet weather. If you have to clean your boots to get in the car, you do not have enough calcium, so add more gypsum. As far as traffic impacted soil, try and keep the loading as low as possible, particularly when wet. Also I note that the soil does not compact as much if the full BD cycle is carried out. Gil COYOTEHILLFARM wrote: > Perfect Orchard what would it be like. > > A very practical question, > please describe an ideal plantation of an Orchard starting from scratch. > In my case with a hard pan, and we will plant Hybrids grapes (cold hardy > types) > > We will start digging a 3 foot wide trench 3 foot dip for the purpose of > loosening up the hardpan, and as long as we plan to plant. > In our case we also need to drain the field from stagnated water, > > Ok, what do we do next ?? > > Hardy and decease resistant grapes. > Mulch or not > Cover crop or not > What type of cover crop > Companion planting with the cover crop > Grassing animals in the vineyard > > and more > > Thanks, for your input. > > Per Garp/NH
