Virgin ground questions…..

I cleared some brush on virgin ground last fall, and am looking to do some work on it this weekend. Gonna lime it, spray it, and hopefully disc it up for the first time. How long after spraying should I wait to disc? Can I spray and then lime back to back(same day)? Would the lime hold residual round-up? Should I just spray this weekend and let sit a few days? I really want to get this thing tore up while the ground is wet since there is a lot of sod to tear up. Want as much done asap as my weekends start to get crazy from here on. Thanks in advance for any help!

Nut

I’ll be interested what the experts say, but given your limited amount of time I’d probably break the ground and spray before you left for the weekend. I’m no farmer though, so don’t rely on me…

Most importantly, have fun this weekend. I love this time of year.

What do you have left for ground cover and vegetation? Ideally, spraying it and getting a good kill, then discing next weekend would probably reduce your weeds and leave you a better worked soil. However, your still ganna get some dormant seed regrowth. If it were me and I had to get it done this weekend, and the vegetation left allowed for breaking the soil with the disc I had, I would disc it all down and break up the soil well. Then I’d lime and rework soil with disc to work in lime. This distributes the lime into your soil, otherwise non tilled surface applied lime is only going to leach in maybe 1/2 inch the first year. All worked in, I’d go spray over the area I worked to kill any weeds left with any kind chance to survive.

Going into it I would expect to spend a lot of time breaking that soil and remaining vegetation up. I would also start looking at how I was going to manage my weed regeneration. If you could spray some pre emergent herbicide on the plot when your done this weekend it would help a lot.

Hope this helps and have fun

This ground was logged about 5-6 years ago so there is significant vegetation. I will be using an atv disc w/ several hundred pounds weight. This is why I want in there while still wet so the disc will dig better. Due to logistics and hauling….can I lime on top of vegetation, then disc, then spray? Lime should work in regardless right? I just want the lime on asap so it can start to work as it is AG lime. My plan is to come back and spray a couple weeks from now to get the weeds that emerge. I have some RR soybeans that I may plant so I can spray one more time later to do a real number on the stinkin weeds. Should I fertilize when I plant the soybeans? I get enough deer pressure that I will not get pods on the beans so may disc in fall and get some winter wheat in then. Thoughts?

Nut

Ideally you want to plow, disk. Wait for new regrowth. Disc again and then plant. If your deer population is that heavy that soybeans wont pod out I wouldn’t even waste my time planting them. I would get a grain I the ground like winter rye that will pretty much grow on cement. Best thing about winter rye is the free nitrogen you get from it when you disk it under. Mix in some 4020 peas for a treat for the deer and you will have half the ammount of money and a constant food source that wont run out.

Then in the fall you could till that under and plant a brassica mix in all of the plot or half. Being that its virgin ground and your using atv equipment I would suggest you look into the groundhog radish or a similar forage radish. The groundhog radish will do tilling for you as they grow pretty deep and when they decompose and the winter freeze/thaw cycle takes place it will break up the earth even more.