Crop Comments: Spread the Closest Fields Last
As I’m writing this column on the first day of December, it’s about three weeks until days start lengthening in the northern hemisphere.
Recently, most of the Northeast had been gathering just a few occasional snowflakes. But that changed the day after Thanksgiving, when the Mohawk Valley got about 18 inches of snow. Even so, that dosage falls way short of nature’s generosity of three years ago, when the Buffalo area got clobbered with six feet of snow. Those late autumn conditions of 36 months ago were much more extreme than what we experienced surrounding this Thanksgiving.
Farsighted, winter-savvy dairy farmers who daily spread manure often designate a level area near cattle housing for strategically removing this overdose of nature’s white bounty. They plow out this flat area, trying to keep it free from snow build-up. This ground, now bare, freezes quite nicely, assuring the availability of “any port in a storm” – one where equipment will not get mired. Scraping bare this comparatively small area of sod, in order to create a hard-frozen spot on which to pile manure, works quite well.
I do something similar to a part of our front yard. This is because our driveway is rather narrow and our garage’s single parking spot is usually hogged by my pick-up truck (the bed of which is commonly encumbered by bagged mineral product that must stay dry).
To create a parking spot in the front yard for our car, I use our snowblower. Minus the insulation provided by many inches, if not feet, of snow, the manure piling spot and the parking spot soon freeze hard enough to make sure no vehicle gets stuck.
The typical Northeast winter is one big reason that manure may not travel too far from the barn, particularly with non-grazing cattle management.
But a lot of times, it’s just so convenient to do your spreading as near as possible to home base. As a result, fields which are more remotely located tend to get short-changed on manure. This means that purchased crop inputs must be introduced to help remotely located fields avoid nutrient starvation. This also means that the nearer fields are more likely to be a pollution threat through surface water runoff or groundwater leaching down to the water table, brook, river and ultimately bay and ocean.
As we discuss the science of manure distribution, it’s increasingly easy to notice the disparity between “near the barn” and “far from the barn.” This contrast became glaringly evident when, a few years ago, I advised a Mohawk Valley dairy crop person who had just moved from the Midwest the year before. I took several soil samples for the newcomer. When the results came back, we observed that the phosphate, potash and magnesium readings were all very high on the field right behind the barn. This Illinois transplant told me that the previous owner had plastered the field right behind the barn with huge doses of manure.
Other soil tests showed that fields farther away were much less blessed with nutrition, particularly starving for phosphorus. Over decades of crop consultation, I have observed that when one field is over-fertilized and this causes another field to be cheated nutritionally, the yield improvement of the first field is consistently less than the yield suppression of the short-changed field.
Thus, spreading a uniform quantity of manure per acre over all the cropland that needs it can be expected to improve average yields compared to the all-too-common feast or famine methods. This accuracy is empowered by soil test results.
The take home message is that before winter really sets in, growers should be sure to spread the most distant fields first. If field conditions permit, spreading manure farther away in late autumn and early winter will mean not having to worry about spreading on those more distant parcels during spring’s normally more uncertain conditions.
Similarly, it’s good to spread lime in autumn, since we don’t know what those often-temperamental spring scenarios will have in store for us. The other reason to apply lime in autumn is that winter’s freeze/thaw action breaks down the lime particles further, thus increasing their effective neutralizing value.
Let me stress another curious occurrence of hardcore cropsmanship – namely, when a landowner took soil samples, gave them to me to get analyzed and something quite interesting took place. All I knew about the samples was the grower’s cropping intentions and the soil type. I didn’t know how far they were from the barn. All too often the fields more distant from the livestock center showed lower soil nutrition and lower yields.
Many crop advisors preach that spreading the farthest fields first is a farming strategy of prioritizing work on fields that lie most distant from the farm’s home base. This approach is often used to ensure these fields are tended to before conditions become too difficult, enabling workers to focus on the nearer fields more conveniently.
The core idea is to start with the fields that are farthest from the central farm, as these might be the most challenging or time-consuming to access later. Dealing with the distant fields first helps prevent them from being left behind if weather or other issues cause delays. This is particularly relevant during busy planting or harvesting seasons. This method helps in planning labor efficiently.
After the distant fields are done, workers can concentrate their efforts on the fields closer to the farm, allowing for better management of resources and time. As a specific example, we see a farmer spreading manure on distant, no-till sod fields first thing in the morning, when the ground was firmer – frost still in the ground. He avoided getting stuck later in the day when the ground got softer. This illustrates how spreading the work out can be a specific tactic to manage different field conditions.
by Paris Reidhead
