lime -- plow under or disc in

[dryfork2]

Gonna try to plow some grass sod and put to alfalfa & orchardgrass. Would you lime then plow under or put on and disc it in. Heavy clay when you get down past 6 - 8 inches.

 

[M-5]

I would plow and let it rest. disk then apply lime and lightly disk again. but Im not familiar with clay so it may be done different else ware

 

[M.Magis]

I would plow and let it rest. disk then apply lime and lightly disk again. but Im not familiar with clay so it may be done different else ware

This is how I would do it as well. With the first method, I picture a lot of it ending up way too deep. And the rest wouldn't get incorporated very well before disolving.

 

[Supa Dexta]

Disk it in here, clay ground.

Plough, disk, lime, disk, land level and plant. Is what I just finished the last few days of. (was ploughed for a while)

Look at the sod you turn over when you plough. Most of the root mass will be in the 3-4" range typically, on older fields.. Right where lime would end up when disked in. And its too rough to run over ploughed ground with out a disk trip first.

 

[dun]

On prepared ground, even heavy clay, I'm not a fan of working lime into the soil. It gets it out of the desired root zone too fast for optimal benefit.

 

[dryfork2]

Talking with lime spread guy he said some plow under and others disc in some wait and let establish for a year. Only experience is fall application on sod .

 

[Son of Butch]

I would not plow it under.

 

[highgrit]

By the way y'all are talking, lime leaches out instead of breaking down and being absorbed by the plants.
Am I reading these post right?

 

[Red Bull Breeder]

I would spray it with round up burn it and disk it.

 

[dun]

The calcium desolves and leaches into the soil and the plant takes it up. I don;t think the actiual limestone ever totally desolves or breaks down.

 

[Stocker Steve]

By the way y'all are talking, lime leaches out instead of breaking down and being absorbed by the plants.
Am I reading these post right?

No.
Standard soil test is down to a 6" depth. Lime is then recommended for this layer.
Lime is usually worked into the surface, and then moves very slowly, often claimed to be a small fraction of an inch per year.
So shallow disking or field cultivating it in is fine. Moldboard plowing it in is not recommended and may some "banding".

 

[littletom]

I agree with burning it down disking and liming. I mold board close to a 100 acres each spring, for tobacco. It is very time consuming and expensive. I don't think it does the ground many favors either. For sure don't wait a year on the lime takes it 6 months to really work anyway.

 

[kenny thomas]

I agree with burning it down disking and liming. I mold board close to a 100 acres each spring, for tobacco. It is very time consuming and expensive. I don't think it does the ground many favors either. For sure don't wait a year on the lime takes it 6 months to really work anyway.

littletom, are you doing any no-till tobacco?

 

[Limepro]

Gonna try to plow some grass sod and put to alfalfa & orchardgrass. Would you lime then plow under or put on and disc it in. Heavy clay when you get down past 6 - 8 inches.

Can you give us more information? Do you have a soil test? I need to know you're CEC ( cation exchange capacity) and base saturation of calcium.
Lime does move very slowly in the soil profile but there are some widely accepted rules of thumb.
On a low CEC soil ( sandy ground with CEC of 3 - 6) lightly disking in is appropriate. In this case you're working with a very loose soil and things move easier with moisture. More importantly these type of soils have few receptor sites for calcium to attach too which doesn't doesn't help either.
On a mid range soil ( CEC of 7 - 12) we start getting more receptor sites to hold our calcium in place. Don't forget our soil has a negative charge and calcium is a cation with a positive charge so they like to attach to each other. In these soils you loose very little calcium to leaching, most of it is consumed when the plant roots release interchangeable hydrogen. The hydrogen swaps places with the calcium molecule and the calcium is used for plant growth. That's a a good thing for alfalfa I've seen protein levels fall drastically from lack of calcium. Legumes like calcium!
Most soil departments like Auburn for example recommend incorporating lime based on a 8 inch furrow slice. I wouldn't go much deeper for most crops but we will talk about this some more in a second because alfalfa is an exception to the rule. So if you have a good disk that can really incorporate you're lime 6 to 8 inches you will be fine if not stick a chisel plow to it first and then disk.
If you're CEC is anything over 13 I am jealous! You've got tons of receptor sites to hold all those nutrients In place. The only draw back to these soils if any is that it might take more tons of lime to raise you're base saturation and get your hydrogen back in balance with everything else but once it is in balance it also takes longer to screw it back up.
Now back to alfalfa, the University of Georgia has developed some protocols for incorporating alfalfa and other grasses together. One of the first things they will tell you is to take a 36 inch deep soil sample. What your looking for is sub soil aluminum which is highly toxic to alfalfa and will retard root growth. That aluminum is notorious for stacking up in that hard pan you are describing at 8 inches deep. If this is a problem you're probably going to need to apply gypsum, which is a highly mobile form of calcium In the soil profile due to it's incredibly small size. The calcium will help remove the aluminum from the root zone. Oh by the way in a good soil I've seen alfalfa roots we'll over 24 inches deep.
Hope this helps please start posting soil samples!

 

[dun]

Oh by the way in a good soil I've seen alfalfa roots we'll over 24 inches deep.

In the desert with sandy soil I once saw a root over 6 foot long. Neighbor used to call it the man root because it grew "the size of a man". A dam skinny man but as tall as one.

 

[Bigfoot]

By the way y'all are talking, lime leaches out instead of breaking down and being absorbed by the plants.
Am I reading these post right?

It's actually a simple process of ion exchange. Hydrochloric acid is probably your culprit if you have an acid soil. The lime ( calcium carbonate) makes he HCL, give up its hydrogen. The CaCo3 seperates in to its 3 components. The problem is that limestone doesn't dissolve very easily. It will catch a ride down thru the soil, as you moisture is carried by gravity down thru the soil. The finer the lime, the easily accessible the exchange. Hope that helps. Plants aren't your culprit for removing calcium. It simply leeches out, IMHO in a pasture, water moves down pretty quickly, the soil is never turned, poop is being added, fertilizer is being added. It's a recipe for an acid soil. Personally, in my area, I'd just about soon lime as fertilize. True micronutrients, become super accessible to the plant slowing growth to a trickle. You put, N, P, and K on, it cost a fortune, and if don't rain there you are. Lime is not that way. Fertilizer is money well spent if it rains. Lime is money well spent anytime.

 

[Limepro]

Bigfoot I like a lot of your post, but I do need to correct a few things in your last as politely as I can. Hcl hydrochloric acid only occurs naturally In one place as gastric acid, it has a very strong ph of one. Most of the hcl we use is commercially produced for industrial use. The acid we see in soils is a very weak carbonic acid with a ph of around 5. It is responsible for some acidity in soils. Most of our hydrogen in our soils comes from a very complex cycle but at the end of that cycle plant roots release hydrogen back into the soil. The hydrogen surrounds other nutrients including calcium in our soils receptor sites . They exchange places and the plant root uses that freed up nutrient to grow. Cation exchange is what we call this. Now back to calcium and plants here are a few examples. 150 bushel to the acre corn removes 60 lbs of calcium and that's just if we shell it. Corn silage removes a lot more since most of the stalk is made of calcium. Peanuts depending on variety can remove as much as 700 lbs to the acre or more. Just growing calves removes 35 to 50 lbs of calcium per acre. Cows graze grass, cows make milk,milks loaded with calcium, calves turn it into bone. Hope this helps.

 

[Stocker Steve]

disc lime in

 

[Limepro]

Stoker Steve is right disk it in and keep it simple. The most important thing is just to actually use lime, so many people don't.

 

[littletom]

I agree with burning it down disking and liming. I mold board close to a 100 acres each spring, for tobacco. It is very time consuming and expensive. I don't think it does the ground many favors either. For sure don't wait a year on the lime takes it 6 months to really work anyway.

littletom, are you doing any no-till tobacco?

Yes I did 15 acres this year. Mixed opinions on it 1 five acre field is the best I have one five acre field is the worst I have. I think it has it's place and is better for the ground. I did it on fields I knew would wash. The good field is behind beans so it has a advantage any way. I will do about the same next year. Everything has to be just right as the only post transplant herbicide we have only controls grass. A big problem is the only control at all for marestail is a hoe. The only labeled pre transplant herbicide we have are roundup, gramoxne , spartain, and command. There are couple more but they don't work. It's hard to give it a fair grade, as this is one of the worst crops here in many years. IT just could not take all the rain. Now that it has stopped we are dealing with fungus hell! I have plants at UK being tested for resistance to our best fungicide now. I can't wait to put this crop behind me. I have a high yield average for my area. And had a first for me the insurance released one field for me to bushhog!