What type of soil is your property ?

[cowboy43]

What type of soil is your property made up of ? Is it easy to work with or is it a challenge ? Mine is a challenge ,because it has five different soils types, the majority of mine is 2 to 6 inch sany loam with flint rock mixed in ,then it is red clay, in the old fields on hill sides it has eroded to the red clay on top. In places flint rock is so thick it could be mined like gravel. When wet it is boggy because the water sits on top of the clay and does does not penatrate into the clay, then it dries out quickly because their is not deep moisture , a few weeks after being real wet with no rain the grass will start going the other way. When grazer type hay is planted most years you get only one cutting . When it is dry the T fence post will bend when driving and digging the corner holes is a whole story in itself. The positive it is paid for and is my home and it keeps me thinking on how to do things differently and plant grasses best adapted to the soils.

 

[fargus]

We have clay loam and silty-clay loam. About 6-12" of good topsoil, over a calcareous clay subsoil. Not a lot of stones. For growing grass it is tough to beat, but water infiltration can be a challenge. The guys that try to crop it have to be really patient, it doesn't dry out fast in the spring. This ground will hang in there a long time before grass turns brown and goes completely dormant in the summer. Natural drainage is variable, and dependent on surface drainage to some extent, so we get a pretty healthy mix of species in our long-term pastures. My only real complaint is the cows will pug it up bad if you rush them on it in the spring.

 

[Running Arrow Bill]

On our home place, based on the well we drilled several years ago, the driller had sand down to 40 feet. On our other place, sandy/clay down several feet that gradually transitions to gravelly, clayey, stuff.

At home place, we or our fence guys have yet to dig a hold deep enough to get out of our sand. Sure makes it for easy digging. But when things are dry and one has driven over a spot, the sand gets as hard as poor concrete. Even after a rare several inches of rain here, we can drive in pastures the next day. Water percolates very fast here. Even at other place, doesn't take long for ground to support a vehicle or tractor without getting stuck.

Once you break through the first 2-3" of grass, when there is moisture present in ground, you can push a "sharpshooter shovel" down to hub without much effort.

 

[Dave]

This area is a real assortment of soil. The glaciers from the last ice age ended where the river is now at the south end of my home place. Around the house and barnyard it is a glacial outwash. Fist size rock with very little dirt for deeper than you want to dig. it drains very fast and you can drive anywhere on it anytime. From behind the barn on back to the river it is a silt loam. Great soil, it holds moisture well and is very workable. At the summer pasture, only about 3 miles south as the crow flies, it is blue clay with about 4 inches of top soil. Over there if it rains two drops they will both be sitting on the surface. Probably 90 % of that place has standing water on the surface from November until mid May. The nieghbor says the difference between too wet to plow and too dry to plow is about a day and a half.

 

[Stocker Steve]

It can take a while to learn a farm and what grows well where. I have:

Floating bog with boulders. Reed canary
Muck meadow with rocks. Red clover, white clover, BFT, red top, timothy
North facing loam with rocks. Red clover, white clover, meadow fescue, orchard grass
South facing loam with rocks. Alfalfa, reed canary

 

[LaneFarms]

We have sand with little to no organic matter about as deep as you want to dig. As for the management everything perculates through sand rather quickly. All it takes is one good rain to wash your fertilizer out of the rooting zone.

 

[dun]

We have rock over clay and gravelly clay over rock. Rock being caprock 3-6 foot thick

 

[farmwriter]

We have sand with little to no organic matter about as deep as you want to dig. As for the management everything perculates through sand rather quickly. All it takes is one good rain to wash your fertilizer out of the rooting zone.

Sounds pretty close to my soil. What's your pasture planted in?

 

[SRBeef]

Mine is heavy clay on rocky hillsides. Soil depth varies a lot from place to place. This type soil should never be turned over or you will lose a lot more of it.

Let's face it, if we had prime farm ground it would be priced much higher and in corn, cotton or some other high value row crop, etc.

Cattle make sense when they can harvest useful forage off of ground that can not or should not be cropped.

Generally it seems to me that the best grass for a given soil is whatever would tend to grow there naturally if left alone (other than weeds). In my case various clovers do well in a mixture of grasses.

Jim

 

[Jogeephus]

Sandy loam with a very light scattering of pea gravel and an arrowhead every now and then. Subosoil is normally some type of clay.

 

[LaneFarms]

We have sand with little to no organic matter about as deep as you want to dig. As for the management everything perculates through sand rather quickly. All it takes is one good rain to wash your fertilizer out of the rooting zone.

Sounds pretty close to my soil. What's your pasture planted in?

Mostly Alicia bermuda grass and some pensacola bahia grass.

 

[dun]

Around here we have different classifications then most places. Smaller then your fist is sand, head size is gravel, from there to small square bale size is coarse gravel, bigger then that is considered rocks.
We have lots of rock!

 

[jkwilson]

Glacial till, silty clay. Fortunately with few rocks. Rxcept for the top 10 inches, the soil doesn't change much no matter how deep you dig. The guy who did my soil survery for the septic said you could go down 400 feet without seeing a significant change in soil composition.

Slimey, bottomless goo this time of year, and impossible to dig by hand in the middle of the summer. The only posthole I've dug by hand during the summer took three days to go three feet. Spend 45 minutes digging (and by digging, I mean chipping away at the @#$%^! ^&*(%$ dirt until the sweat blocks your glasses and you can't see) 4 or 5 inches, pour a bucket of water in the hole, wait an hour or two and then repeat until your hands, arms and back tell you to quit for the day. I think fond thoughts about my PTO post hole digger every time I walk past it. :heart:

 

[Copenhagen & Shiner B]

I live where the Peidmont changes into the sand hills. I have about 1/2 acre of blackland on an old drained Carolina Bay that I would fence out for a garden if it did not stay too wet to plow during most springs. The rest of my place is divided between deep sand, highwater sand (sandy loam),and rocky grey-yellow clay. Most people are amazed at how the soil changes on my 28 acres.

 

[Santas and Duhram Reds]

I have what some call Black Gumbo. It looks like good black dirt but you don't have to go very far down to find clays and rust red dirt swirled in

 

[cypressfarms]

I'm lucky. The land that my wife inherited behind our house sits on what was the east bank of the Mississippi river a couple hundred years ago; so it's very fertile and sandy, and goes down pretty deep. Now the land at my dad's place is black - almost like a buckshot mud type with a clay mix. Still fertile, but doesn't drain as well as the land behind my house.

 

[TSR]

I believe they call mine Memphis silt loam. Pretty good dirt especially the bottoms.

 

[Copenhagen & Shiner B]

I'm lucky. The land that my wife inherited behind our house sits on what was the east bank of the Mississippi river a couple hundred years ago; so it's very fertile and sandy, and goes down pretty deep. Now the land at my dad's place is black - almost like a buckshot mud type with a clay mix. Still fertile, but doesn't drain as well as the land behind my house.

Does your Dad try to grow fescue on that black mud?

 

[hersh]

clay on top of clay on top of clay with some top soil. if you manage drainage you got something.