Building soil

[Hook]

How long (in years) do you think it would take to build soil on sand? Properly stocked, not overgrazed, and bringing hay in. The land is marginal with its grasses anyway. As much sand as there is grass. I'm thinking 5 years and there should be a large difference.

 

[B&M Farms]

How long (in years) do you think it would take to build soil on sand? Properly stocked, not overgrazed, and bringing hay in. The land is marginal with its grasses anyway. As much sand as there is grass. I'm thinking 5 years and there should be a large difference.

I would think sooner but it depends on how you go about it. Most of my pastures are sandy loam soil and I think the single most important thing I've done for soil quality was cross fencing and planned rotations. Planting winter grasses and clover has helped with organic matter and cutting back on nitrogen.

 

[ANAZAZI]

Concentrating the cattle to one padock while resting the others. Longer grass builds more soil than shorter grass, basically the part the cows eat may be the same, but longer grass means more plant litter, more mature grass means more fiber which is the organic matter that goes to the soil. A lawn builds very little soil, the clippings have very little fibre in them, and the roots are short due to the balance between green parts and roots. In a pasture with long rests and short intensive grazing the grass builds massive organic matter both below and above ground.
Move the hay feeding around at on bale per spot with a ring of manure and prints around it, then the next such ring just touching the first. Manure works best evenly spread.
Legumes, yes, the more total production on the land, the faster the soil building.

 

[Hook]

It's a low input management piece. Not cross fenced and too far away to rotate. Hay gets fed in a different spot each time, putting each bale in the sandiest spot I can find. It's got 2 main area divided by wood/swamp head. The place got 70 bales fed out in a 30 acres or so area. Next year I'll feed them out on the other grassy side. Been in this place 16 months so far.

 

[ANAZAZI]

During times you feed hay you could have more cattle on that property. You can also put the minerals where you need manure the most, there is a tendency that cattle bring fertility towards water and mineral spots...

 

[Nesikep]

it takes FOREVER around here.. we have a VERY arid climate though which is absolutely destructive to organic matter in the soil.. I have some sandier areas and I just can't get any kind of organic matter into it, I can feed there all I like, but if I do it too much the cows start digging in it and making a mess. Short of bringing in a B train load of peat moss or something I just have to try and keep things alive there.
I found regular plowing helps.. if you go much over 7 years between reseeding, the roots get sod bound and don't go down anymore, requiring more frequent watering for greatly diminished yields.

 

[JWBrahman]

Try feeding your hay all winter on the sand. Fence it off in the spring and plant sunflowers. Sunflowers are what anazazi is talking about when he says "long grasses". They build deep root systems that introduce organic matter to the sand as the roots decompose. Bush hog the sunflowers when they are finished and let it sit until you start feeding hay again.

 

[shaz]

I've been trying to build soil on my place which is mostly clay for 10yrs and I can say I've made very little difference.

 

[Hook]

I've thought about trying to find a chopper or tree mulched and feeding round bales into it. Driving around blowing hay everywhere. But that seems like an expensive proposition. It's annold orange grove so there's a lot of residual cooper on the land. I've even consider that dark soil but that's expensive to have applied here too. Hopeful another couple years of feeding hay in different places will work.

 

[Banjo]

I've been trying to build soil on my place which is mostly clay for 10yrs and I can say I've made very little difference.

The only thing that will build soil for the long term is planned grazing i.e. IRG, MIG...intensive grazing followed by an adequate rest/recovery period.
Before I started doing IRG/MIG I tried all of the soil building practices like adding compost, feeding hay on hillsides or on poor places, applying commercial fertilize, while at the same time still continuously grazing my pastures.
I would see some initial improvement, but after a year or two I was right back where I started...as if I had done nothing.