inyati13
Well-known member
The Inner Bluegrass of Kentucky is renowned for its Racehorse farms and fine soil. When the settlers came to Kentucky, there were no mineral supplements but the soils are naturally high in minerals like calcium and trace minerals which produced the Kentucky Thoroughbred Horses. Surrounding the Inner Bluegrass is the Outer Bluegrass Physiographic Region of Kentucky where I am located. The physiography here at the farm is vastly different from the rolling land of the Bluegrass but the soils have the same geologic origins – Ordovician Limestone.
The Ordovician is a geologic period that covers the time between 485.4 and 443.8 million years ago. It was a period before the rise of vertebrates. The primordial seas that covered what is now my farm were teeming with life. Many of those organisms had exoskeletons made of minerals mostly calcium carbonate. As they died, their remains accumulated on the sea floor. But more importantly, the minerals suspended in solution precipitated out and along with the remains of the sea life, formed massive deposits of mineral rich detritus. Over millions of years of geologic time, the pressure of the accumulated detritus formed limestone. The limestone in the Inner and Outer Bluegrass of Kentucky is very rich. Phosphorous is naturally high in our soils. It is a waste to use it as a component in fertilizer.
The formations of rock that constitute the Ordovician formation have been uplifted and eroded. The weathering and erosion of the exposed limestone has created our soils. Properly managed, our soils are very productive. The forage communities are very diverse. I have had people from other areas comment to me that you cannot produce cattle as well conditioned as mine just on grass pasture. I don't believe that. It is not just on my farm. Cattle that are properly managed in this area are all well conditioned on grass pasture alone.
What life would look like in the Ordovician seas.
The Ordovician is a geologic period that covers the time between 485.4 and 443.8 million years ago. It was a period before the rise of vertebrates. The primordial seas that covered what is now my farm were teeming with life. Many of those organisms had exoskeletons made of minerals mostly calcium carbonate. As they died, their remains accumulated on the sea floor. But more importantly, the minerals suspended in solution precipitated out and along with the remains of the sea life, formed massive deposits of mineral rich detritus. Over millions of years of geologic time, the pressure of the accumulated detritus formed limestone. The limestone in the Inner and Outer Bluegrass of Kentucky is very rich. Phosphorous is naturally high in our soils. It is a waste to use it as a component in fertilizer.
The formations of rock that constitute the Ordovician formation have been uplifted and eroded. The weathering and erosion of the exposed limestone has created our soils. Properly managed, our soils are very productive. The forage communities are very diverse. I have had people from other areas comment to me that you cannot produce cattle as well conditioned as mine just on grass pasture. I don't believe that. It is not just on my farm. Cattle that are properly managed in this area are all well conditioned on grass pasture alone.
What life would look like in the Ordovician seas.