Small-Scale No-Till Garden

[Deleted]

I've been looking for ways to build up the topsoil in our garden plot, and I'd like to try the no-till farming some organic growers use, but manually and on a small scale. We have a cereal rye covercrop growing right now, and in the spring I'd like to cut it with a scythe, wait 2 weeks, and then plant corn into it so that the seed would have plenty of moisture for germinating and existing root channels to grow into. Does anybody think this would work, or would the residue be too thick for the corn to emerge through and the ground not loose enough?

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Are you expecting the rye to die when you cut it? Or do you expect it to re-sprout and keep growing all season long? Do you expect to cut it multiple times during the growing season to keep down competition with the corn?

If it were my garden, I might plant the corn before I cut the rye, or at the same time. Give the corn every chance to get a good start before the rye starts regrowing. If you are worried about the corn seed not emerging through a thick cover of mulch, move most of the mulch out of the way as each seed is planted... A stick/tube seeder would be excellent for planting through fallen stems. www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9qs7Rkdaqk

[oxbowfarm]

Rye will die very completely if you cut it when it is in the boot stage or beyond. If you cut it before that it will resprout. Some of the commercial no-till (non-organic) vegetable growers are using a system where they roll the rye down with a modified rolling stalk chopper and do a simultaneous hit with herbicide. Then they seed or plant with a drill or transplanter obviously no-till versions. You should have very good success with this if you hit the rye at the right stage. The downside is in a dry year the rye will have used up an amazing amount of your stored soil moisture by the time it is in the boot stage, rye has a pretty amazing root system for an annual.
I was at a farming conference once and a woman from Berea, Kentucky was doing just the exact thing you are talking about here with corn. Her farm is called Salamader Springs Farm, you might shoot her an email on Local Harvest. She could probably give you some good pointers as to timing and methods, I imagine her climate is similar to yours.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

For best results when mow-killing rye, wait until it has begun flowering. A long-day plant, rye is encouraged to flower by 14 hours of daylight and a temperature of at least 40° F. A sickle bar mower can give better results than a flail mower, which causes matting that can hinder emergence of subsequent crops.

Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education, Cereal Rye
www.sare.org/Learning-Center/Books/Managing-Cover-Crops-Profitably-3rd-Edition/Text-Version/Nonlegume-Cover-Crops/Cereal-Rye

[Deleted]

Thanks for the recommendation, oxbow. I'll try to send her an e-mail and see what she says.

We've normally just cut and plowed under our cover crop once it begins flowering. Next season will be our first year attempting a no-till system, so I'm still trying to figure everything out. I had thought about attempting a no-till 3 Sisters design. What I figured I could do is maybe scythe the rye once in late March when it gets about 24 inches high and let it rot on the surface. Then, I could cut it again at around 24 inches in Mid-April. My hope (though probably ill-founded) was that the rye's own residue would be thick enough to smother most of the regrowth and also be partially decomposed by a May 1st planting date. Then, I would move the mulch out of the way, plant the large-seeded crops, and place the residue back over them. Also, since thick piles of rotting grass tend to get pretty warm from decomposition, I thought perhaps the extra heat would warm the soil sufficiently for timely germination since it wouldn't be exposed to sunlight. Once the corn reached the appropriate size, I would follow up with pole beans and winter squash (I'd imagine the latter would take care of some persistent rye regrowth if a monster variety like Seminole were planted). All this is purely speculative though, so, please, feel free to critique; I need the advice.

[Deleted]

@ Joseph: I wonder who that good-looking guy in the video could be? lol.

[bonsaioutlaw]

I just subscribed to your channel. Please make some videos.

[Deleted]

So, do you think my idea would work, or would it probably be better to wait till the boot stage?

[oxbowfarm]

There are some farmers in PA that are really sophisticated with their use of cover crops. One of the things they do with rye is very similar to what you are talking about but I think they cut it much earlier than 24". At that height you are pretty much in the boot stage and you'll not get much regrowth. They mow it several times at about a foot tall or so and then let it get tall and kill-mow it. The farm is called Beech Grove Farm, I'm not sure if they are online as they live pretty simple. They have written a bunch of articles about their cover cropping systems that you can buy reprints of from the Small Farmers Journal. They do a combination of reduced tillage, no-till and ridgetill in combination with the cover crop rotations.

[Deleted]

Thanks, oxbow. I'll look them up too. Does my bit about the rotting grass warming up the ground a little and helping germination sound accurate? Last year when we chopped our rye down a couple days before tilling in, the green clumps beneath the dried out top layer were quite warm. And, of course, there would be plenty of soil moisture down there too.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Dec 31, 2011 11:15:54 GMT -5 @bjargakarlinn said:

Thanks, oxbow. I'll look them up too. Does my bit about the rotting grass warming up the ground a little and helping germination sound accurate? Last year when we chopped our rye down a couple days before tilling in, the green clumps beneath the dried out top layer were quite warm. And, of course, there would be plenty of soil moisture down there too.

Rye produces about 0.4 Kg of straw per square meter. The heat energy of the straw if burned in a fire is about 4000 KCal per Kg. So the maximum energy produced by decomposing straw would be less than 1600 Kcal per square meter. If we spread all of that heat into the top 20 cm of soil, over 10 days, it would result in a temperature rise of something like 0.8C per day.

However, the amount of sunlight falling on the soil is approximately 7000 Kcal per square meter per day. (Two hours of sunlight provides as much heat as the entire decomposition sequence.) So you would keep your soil much colder by insulating it from the sunlight by a layer of straw.

[oxbowfarm]

Right, mulched soil always stays cooler than bare soil in spring and summer, and stays warmer in fall and winter. Soil temperatures will always rise slower in no-till conditions because of the insulating properties of the mulch/residue.

[12540dumont]

John Jeavons talks about this in his biointensive gardening talks.

I think the whole thing is up on u-tube and you can watch it.

[Deleted]

Would it be a good idea, then, to soak the corn seed overnight to speed up germination since the mulched ground would be cooler?

[littleminnie]

It is always good to soak corn seed. It really works well IMO.

How do you plan on planting the corn? Are you going to hoe little rows in the cut cover crop? or will you use machinery? I assume farmers do a light plow of a row or trench if you will for the seed. In 2008 I planted 50x50 feet of corn with a hoe and my hands and weeded it likewise. It broke my hoe and almost killed my back! Then I bought an earthway seeder at least. But that wouldn't get through a mowed cover crop on its own.