Buglengrunt

A friend of mine has property that has alot of clay in the soil. There is probably 3 acres that can be planted to somthing. The clay seema damp most of the time, around the edgesor where there is low spots water will stand for some time. What should he plant?
Is there is anything you would recoment to help things?

Dan O.

I used red clover/sweetclover plowed down to help break up my clay. If the soil's too wet they won't grow that well. You could grow corn, soybeans, wheat or oats in the drier areas. Clay is difficult; if you try to work it when it's too wet you break down the soil structure, if it's too dry it's like concrte. There's only a small period of time when you it works well. Fall plowing also helped me get some of the first crops in. Now after 18 years, my soil has turned a nice brown/black colour instead of the red that I started with.

You may want to plant shrubs like Dogwood and trees like willow/poplar in the wetter areas.

Dan O.

marty 56

Birdsfoot tre-foil likes the wet. My bud has the same set up and the tre-foil does real well there. We seeded in some alsike and ladion and they seem to do ok. We'll know more this year but alsmost everytime out the plot had deer in it......marty

farm hunter

We have alot of clay in our feilds. You can work clay like other feilds if the drainage is OK.

Dan O. is correct about plowing under crops to make the soil better. We plant annuals lik rye or oats, let them mature, then mow and plow them under. After three years - we've built up the organic matter in the soils to make them less like cement during the dry times, and most crops can be grown.

Our areas of poor drainage have proved impossible to deal with though. In parts of our area, the soil might only be a couple feet deep, then you hit limestone bedrock - and we have standing water problems on these areas. If the lay of the land does not allow water to drain off - there is little you can do. We are putting 2 acres into a pine stand this year for this very reason.

Dan O.

farm hunter; you'd have my regional forester pulling his hair out. We walked my property last fall to line up this springs plantings. He changed the plantings in my poor drainage areas from pine and spruce to cedars. It sounds like the same setup as you're talking about: 1-2 feet of soil over solid dolostone. Wet in the spring, dries out in the summer due to thin soil cover.

Dan O.

farm hunter

cedars are a good choice if the soil is near neutral, cedar grows, but poorly on acidic soil. Some pines love acidic soils, and do well during wet times, eg. Austrian Pine, and Norway spruce (this is our prefered planting). Also in my area cedar does not occur in the immediate area. Plantings of cedar are destroyed by our deer, unless protected. I've seen your posts on soaping the trees, I suspect that would help.

Dan O.

farm hunter; what's the pH of your soil? With my limestone base rock my soil is 7.5 - 8.0. Most people talk about raising pH, I need to go the other way to grow some plants. There's so much exposed rock, that my neighbour is trying to open a marble/dolostone quarry next door.

In our area their recommending against using exotic species such as Scots Pine or Norway Spruce. Some species are invasive, others disease prone, still others less useful to wildlife than North American species.

Dan O.

farm hunter

Your Ph is good, mine runs 4.5 -5.0 in these areas. The land is old farm land that was very over worked and with very little put back in. Invasive species could be a problem, but we already have Austrian pine growing "wild" on parts of the land. The reason we want to introduce Norway spruce is because it matures at a taller height, and will provide a second tree type to the austrian pine. We are planting in a 3:1 Ratio - Austrian Pine:Norway spruce,