Road to Emmaus: Planting hay

We have 3 acres of crop ground that, until last year, had been rented by a local farmer and farmed conventionally (i.e. not organic). I knew I wanted to get it back to organic status, so last year I rented to a different neighbor who attempted organic corn without a lot of success. It was a dry year and the weeds took control and seeded out. This year I had arrangements to rent to a different organic farmer to have to the acreage seeded back to hay, but due to the wet spring, he as unable to get it done and I decide to try and farm it myself.

Because the ground was corn the last few years, it grew up in to weeds this summer, so I had to use a brush hog to mow off the fields a couple of times. It's important to keep the weeds from going to seed, or your problems will multiply exponentially. My plan had been to plow and plant the field with a grass based pasture/hay mix in August, but my tractor, a 1940s vintage 9N Ford, broke down. It took a number of weeks to identify the problem and get the tractor running. After replacing the spark plugs, condenser, and points, we had it running. By then it was nearly the end of August, and I wondered if I had missed my window of opportunity, but the tractor breaking down probably turned out to be a blessing, since the recent drought would have ensure that nothing germinated anyway. While spring is when hay is normally planted, fall is actually a good time to seed hay, particularly grass-based hay mixes, as opposed to alfalfa. The idea is that the hay will germinate and get some growth, establishing its roots, and then go dormant over winter.

By early September, I had the tractor running again and was ready to farm 2 if the 3 acres. I began by using the brush mower to again now off the weeds. I then used a 2 bottom moldboard plow to plow the field. A moldboard plow flips the soil, in hopes if burying most of the weed seeds and keeping them from sprouting and competing with the new seeding. For much of the last 100 years, moldboard planting was the standard method of American tillage. It has only been in the last 20-30 years that it has given way in large part to minimal tillage methods, such as chisel plows, or no-til methods, which can only be done through use of chemicals. I'm not an advocate of moldboard plowing as a regular practice, as I believe it disrupts the important layers in the soil and microorganisms that grow within those layers, but for purposes of preparing the seedbed for hay or pasture, where the crop will remain for a number of years, I believe it's good to get the ground prepared right the first time, and do what you can to thwart the weeds so the hay can get established.

After the field had been plowed, I used a small 3-point disk to help knock down the clumps, and begin smoothing the field. Because the ground is so dry, I found that there was still a lot of dirt clumps that were passing through the disc, so I borrowed a neighbor's cultipacker to break up some of the clumps, and went over the field with a harrow that I had created out of an old heavy chain link gate, pulled behind the tractor with a chain. Finally, we borrowed a neighbor's grain drill, which I pulled with the 9N to seed the hay, mixed with oats. Now we just need some rain to make it germinate. Hopefully, it will then have some time to grow this fall, the. Go dormant over the window, and then resume growing in the spring.