Tillage is basically a depth and particle size concept going from the deepest to the shallowest penetration and from the largest particles to the smallest.
What tillage does is basically break soil into finer and finer particles in preparation for seeding.
The suprising thing is not all soils or plots even need tillage to get your food plot started. And there are some disadvantages to tilling the ground. For example. turning the soil over or disturbing the soil exposes new weeds and dormant seeds. These can then become strong competitors for your recently planted deer food plot.
So the best advice is only go as deep as you need to in the tillage action. How do you decide what you need to do and how deep you need to go.
To decide on how much tillage you need, here are crucial questions you should ask before starting:
1. What you are going to plant? Small seed or large seed? Deep roots or shallow roots?
2. What is the depth of the healthy soil in your plot? Do you have only an inch or two of surface dirt before you hit sand or clay?
3. Potential Moisture issues. Are you in a notoriously dry area, or is rainfall practically the enemy?
4. New site or a site that has already been used or prepared.
5. How much money can you or are you willing to invest? How big the plot is and what is available to you in terms of tilling options for behind your truck, atv, or hand tilling.
Keep posted and I will continue the saga of Tillage in days to come.
I will even have some hints for those people with no cash, no land, no plot…..that is the no tillage, no plot, natural resource plotting concepts applied to the great outdoors in hard to reach, out of the way, “no one knows it is there kind of places”.
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