Almanac: 12 hours, 14 minutes of daylight. The day started off with rain and warm temperatures, its now around freezing. Tonights low will be in the teens and tomorrows high, maybe 25. It is not getting us into the mood to walk those posts for hours. The ground is mostly frozen anyway. We check each post for breakage by pushing on it. If it rocks, its a goner. But if the ground is frozen, the broken post might not rock... which leads me to my next factoid. Frozen farmland is a farmers friend. Least it is up here in the Great Lakes region where the soil is mostly a heavy clay. When annual plants die, the rot rots pretty quickly in the ground. Water gets in and freezes. As it freezes, it expands and breaks up soil compaction. Compacted soil is not good because it absorbs less rainwater; actually, the water runs off compacted soil. Last year we planted a special kind of radish seed in the rows. They have a long tap root...can extend 2 to 3 feet down in the soil, and being radish, they have a thick root. Tillage radish is a tool the farmer can use to lighten up/loosen the soil...part of a no - till approach to land management. No till is much better for the land because it prevents erosion of the topsoil. Its been determined that the soil has layers, and turning the dirt over aggressively destroys those layers. So the freeze - thaw cycle that makes potholes is also the farmers friend. And the worms best friend...and the mycorrhizials...those little fungi in the ground...they are part of how the roots get their nourishment. More on that on another day.
Posted on: Sat, 22 Mar 2014 21:27:58 +0000
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