thaw

Our recent two day thaw shrank the snow piles significantly.  It also reduced and hardened the snow remaining on the pastures. Once again, they remain snow covered while the neighbor's black plowed fields are showing through.

This is the reason why things in this area are done as they are.  That black soil, increasingly exposed to the sun as the winter wanes, will warm faster than anything with cover on, including pastures.  With the pastures though, the soil life on and surrounding the root systems pushes in the other direction making those perennials productive much sooner than any annual plant, and even ahead of winter annuals.

This is a powerful argument in favor of the plow here on the wet prairie and one which any who want a different direction must take seriously.  For us, after we transitioned to organic and reduced the proportion of acres in corn and deleted soybeans entirely, it means an extensive inclusion of hay in the rotation.  Then the tilled hay ground can be planted timely to corn which will usually produce a good yield.  But this requires a revamping of the entire farm.
The corn acreage must be reduced, as noted.  But livestock must be kept or we would be dependent upon the hay market, often enough thin and poor.  Since livestock are kept, there is a wide variety of crop plants available to be grown on the non corn and non hay acres, because the livestock are always there as the market. 

Also, with livestock available, some of the harvest of some of these unusual crops can be done directly, with the cattle, for instance.  And these crops-small grains and forages-need not be planted first thing in the spring and do not need primary tillage to establish.  These changes, instituted over a lifetime of farming and not finished yet have made our farm more resilient, which is a considerable asset in troubled and trying times with the climate and the economy.

Black soil with nothing growing is bleeding carbon-worsening our climate problem-and nitrogen, an expensive crop input.  Thinking our way away from these practices is vital, though not easy.