Sunday, December 9, 2012

Natural Dairyman Farmer - Ben Mead


This Dairyman Farmer comes very close to the elements included within "The Elysian Fields and Natural Ley Pastures Farming System" provided by "Keypoint Solutions" promoted by Clear Choice - Elysian. We are always looking for others to promote this good work - Please Join Us!


Thursday, November 29, 2012

Clear Choice - "Keypoint Solutions" and "Absorption Fertility"






 As a longtime developer of grazing properties, (and judging by the volume of this years’ inquiries) I can think of no better challenge than the 2012 pervasive drought conditions contrasted with other various “high moisture” weather events for demonstrating the long-term attributes of the Yeomans Brand non-inversion pasture plow and Clear Choice - “Keypoint Solutions” systems in general to increase available forages utilization of “Absorption Fertility” on pastures and range lands in a wide range of conditions.

By virtue of its rich history, it’s no secret that narrow shank plow incisions via pattern cultivation in sod can provide grazing enhancement as measured in increases of available forages in both wet and dry years by virtue of better managed water resources; these techniques have been well-documented for over 100 years and very probably for 200 years or more.

The historical limiting factors in the early history of any in ground tillage device is always governed by ability to transfer available horsepower. With the development in England and elsewhere in Europe and America beginning (as late as) in the late 1800s , narrow shank – non-inversion plow devices (such as the “Ransomes, Sims and Jefferies” CIC Plow shown above); many farming user – authors of the past era devoted whole written chapters in well publicized books on the subject and it’s remarkable observed (horsepower efficient) effects on Soil Organic Matter resulting in increased “Absorption Fertility”. 

 

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Yeomans general Digging Point samples


From Top Down: The ML-1 "Merlin", The WB-3 "Wombat" and The "Bullfrog with LF-1 "Leap Frog" inserted and The black TP-1"Tadpole".

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Texas bound Zeus © Brand YZ-L-43-10




A service provider and client - Sebastian Stadler sends us this photo of his Zeus © Brand YZ-L-43-10 plow frame purchase from us with Yeomans Plow Shanks arranged as a pasture unit, and available for Ag. Service’s and hire in Texas and the surrounding area.


If interested, please call us for his contact information; and be sure to "Friend" us ("Clear Choice - Elysian") on Facebook!

Be safe. Sincerely,

Royal A. Purdy
Clear Choice © - Elysian ©; and Yeomans – Zeus © Plow Dealer, Sales and Service
A. H. Tuttle and Company
1007 County Road 8
Farmington, NY.  14425
(315)-986-7007
Skype = clearchoiceelysian

Yeomans Keyline Plows, ...as your soil gets richer - so do you!

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

The Yeomans Plow surfaces again in Graze ® magazine


Clear Choice © - Elysian ©

The August-September 2012 issue of Graze ® magazine included a (page 9) article submission from New London, Ohio grazing dairy farmer Eric Grim regarding his experience with a borrowed Yeomans “Keyline” Plow. The writer referred to his experience as “Vertical Tillage”; anything but the proper protocol term use of the popular Yeomans Plow Company tillage – low cost irrigation methodology - correctly referred to as “Keyline Principles”.

As a Yeomans plow dealer supplying plows and planning services to all the America’s,  A. H. Tuttle and Company utilizes state of the art “Keypoint Solutions” to plan your non-inversion broad-acre land designs and Yeomans Keyline plow purchase.

The user Mr. Grim boasts of documented forage increases of 1000 lbs. Dry Matter per acre, and in side by side evaluation - better wet year (2011) and (2012) dry pasture management capabilities!

We are the America’s premier total service provider concerning Yeomans Plows and we can help you too, but you first need to contact us today!

 
P.S. ..and protocol use increases soil organic matter such as to sequester carbon as well!

Be safe. Sincerely,

Royal A. Purdy
Clear Choice © - Elysian ©; and Yeomans – Zeus © Plow Dealer, Sales and Service
A. H. Tuttle and Company
1007 County Road 8
Farmington, NY.  14425
(315)-986-7007
Skype = clearchoiceelysian

Yeomans Keyline Plows, ...as your soil gets richer - so do you!

Friday, August 3, 2012

Join Clear Choice (c) - Elysian (c)!

Join Clear Choice (c) - Elysian (c) on Facebook!

 Join us and become a Fan of the Facebook Home of Clear Choice (c) - Elysian (c) and "Keypoint Solutions" by clicking on the top right margin link!

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Supercharge Your Pasture Plan with “Keypoint Solutions”

Ideally clients will first have us plan to install an Elysian © perimeter containment fence system to a farm-land area to establish livestock control – and having solved for that, from there implement our in-house Clear Choice © - Keypoint Solutions ©, with methods and pasture fixtures to facilitate their production model. Each of our element systems are customized to each farmstead and field. These systems aren’t expensive but they do offer unique problem solving – proven solutions geared toward profit.  

Clients have asked us this year: “Would your systems offer meaningful solutions in these current 2012 drought conditions?”; .. and our answer is “Yes”, .. a fully implemented farm plan design can and would provide ample one person irrigation as measured in inches / acre rates distributed within minutes, to pasture and so too other crops with low cost ambient derived water (rainfall) collected from topography as per custom design.

Contact us at A. H. Tuttle and Company and allow us to begin planning for the full benefit of our Keyline Principle Irrigation Services on your pastures today!

Monday, June 18, 2012

Interesting Client Keylined Crop Trials – 2012 Update


The following is the second submission of an unedited Yeomans Keyline Plow client Field Report as relayed to us by Mr. Dean Yancey and his wife Wanda at - Agrotecy, Lowville, NY.  

Progress of Pasture Cropping (Row Cropping on Permanent Turf)

No-till planting of wheat or corn into pastures is a growing trend in Australia, Europe, and the Mid-West U.S.  In the beginning of the dry season native grasses become dormant and the wheat grows well.  Often herbicides such as gramaxone (herbistat) retard the grasses long enough to establish the cereal crop.  Eventually, the crop will shade out the native competition. Fertilizers are necessary at first because most agricultural land has been depleted of soil organic matter. However, after a few years this higher yielding double crop, no-till practice restores soil health.  Fertilizer and herbicide become less necessary. Colin Seis, Kristy Jones, et al. have developed and promoted this practice for a decade starting in Australia. 

Advantages of Pasture Cropping
           
Planting costs are minimal because little tillage or removal of existing sod is necessary.  Few weeds invade the narrow zones of row crops.  Annuals of most weed species are less active in later summer months when the fast growing row crop is covering the narrow band of tillage.Usually a first cutting of hay is removed or pastured prior to planting.  For our area, we prefer grazing corn for early June no-till planting.  Harvest it nine weeks later at the tassle stage. Without a cob or kernel corn it furnishes low starch high energy forage enabling dairy cows to produce more milk on less concentrate diets.  This is the goal of progressive farmers seeking lower feeding costs and better herd health. 
           
After harvesting the summer row crop, the forage grasses reestablish with no need to plant a cover crop. Sorghum x sudan hybrid, sudan grass, millet, or sweet corn could be planted in the crop rotation.  These crops are rapid humus builders when planted into hayfields.  Each can release hundreds of pounds of sugar per acre to feed soil microbes that rebuild humus.  Healthy soil reduces cost for pest and disease control. The corn population need be only half the normal to cover expenses.  Risk of losing money in poor weather is very low because costs are minimized. A half-crop yield is sufficient to cover harvest costs. 
           
Grazing these crops reduces harvest costs and nutrients are returned without any equipment needed.  Humus builds fastest in this case. Soil structure, water and nutrient holding capacity ,drainage, and tilth are improved. Hilly or stony land even where growing seasons are short can be valuable for pasture cropping. Erosion from minimal tillage on permanent turf is little problem.  We prefer to plant in contour curves around the ridges.  In the keyline method most contours will slope gradually to transfer rainfall to adjacent ridges avoiding transport of soil downhill. We use a Yeoman plow to subsoil, aerate, and plant simultaneously in a keyline contour pattern. Most fertilizer or compost is broadcast before planting. Some starter fertilizer is applied with the Yeoman plow-planter. This plow has wear-resistant shanks and points.  The wear parts are cheaply replaced.  The soil contact parts are aerodynamic in shape and slide through the soil with minimal friction and disturbance of soil structure. We find ten horse power per shank is sufficient unless deep hardpans are being fractured. In fact several horses could pull one shank.  Operating costs (fuel, maintenance, parts, labor) are reasonable.
           
While planting the shanks are set to desired depth for aeration.  A V-shaped wing knife attached to the rear of a shank is adjusted to plow a foot-wide zone while seed is being dropped ahead of the knife point. The knife slices off roots and rolls back a three inch layer of sod. Germination was great during the drought June 2011.  The plow shanks penetrate bone dry sod easily, unlike conventional no-till planters.  Few machines are required. Grandpa almost had enough horse-drawn implements to do pasture cropping. This method of farming can quickly supply the crop demanded by changing markets.  A hayfield or pasture can be converted to a cereal or vegetable crop, then left alone to revert back to grass as the market demands.  Round baling of Master’s Choice BMR grazing corn can be a challenge.  It dries down slowly.  However, growing grass between the rows simplified harvest.  The grass dries much quicker than green corn stalks.  Cows milk well on the combination.  Harvesting the crop before late fall rains reduces mud problems. Working on sod with dump trucks, round balers, and mid-sized tractors is gentle on the soil and machinery. 

Environmentalists support this farming method.  Carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is sequestered as soil organic matter when plant residue and roots are quickly converted into humus by active microbial population in healthy soils.  Erosion is nil while producing grain crops.  Nutrient run-off is avoided protecting aquatic systems. Dependency on imported petroleum is greatly reduced with less need of fuel fertilizer and pesticide.  Organic farmers can use this method with compost only.  No winter cover crop need be plowed into the soil to maintain fertility.  Nature has built the most productive crop land with a commingling of grasses, legumes, and grazing animals. Cereal crops including corn grew throughout the grassland before man’s presence. 

Pasture cropping can be challenging where soils are depleted and fertility or rainfall is inadequate for crops like corn. With time, the build-up of humus improves both fertility and water retention.  Is grass a competitor to corn like any weed would be?  No, grass is fed to cattle along with the corn. It is not a weed.  It’s a healthy combination for cattle diets, easy to harvest  for disc mowers, rakes, and round balers.  The corn is planted in tilled shallowly plowed zones of about one foot width and four feet spacing on center.  It takes a few weeks for the grasses to send new roots into the plowed zone. By then the grazing corn has established well.  Pre-starter fertilizer in the corn row helps in the competition.  The corn seems to compete with adjacent corn stalks more than the grass does. In fact, the tallest corn at harvest is found amongst the tallest grass where soil productivity is higher. 

Pasture cropping can utilize heavy applications of manure without excessive nutrient buildup and danger of nutrient run-off. Manure can be kept closer to the barn.  Even hilly fields can be utilized.  The aeration while planting improves infiltration of liquid manure.  Pasture cropping methods should be tried for reestablishing alfalfa in hayfields where it has nearly disappeared.  The narrow zone plowing mixes much dirt to three or four inch depth.  This reduces lingering allopathic toxins left by the alfalfa roots.  Seed dropped behind the plow knife should establish nicely on suitable soils for alfalfa.

Other crops of interest for hayfield planting could include oil seed (sunflower, soy bean, canola) teff grass for a summer horse hay market, forage brassicas for increased grazing capacity from May to December; sugar crops, fiber, and textile crops etc.  These experiments should be top priority for us.
                                                                                                              Dean Yancey
                                                                                                  Lowville, New York
                                                                                                             June 4, 2012            


Monday, February 6, 2012

Interesting Client Keylined Crop Trials - 2011

The following unedited Yeomans Keyline Plow client field report was relayed to us by Mr. Dean Yancey and his wife Wanda at - Agrotecy, Lowville, NY.  Further inquiries of their local services may be made directly to them or us and we will pass along the requests.

Agrotecy-Interesting Crop Trials 2011

Fields aerated last year broke their yield records in June. A Yeoman thin shank plow was used to rip slots eight to eleven inches deep along contours the previous summer. These slots allowed air and rain to infiltrate deeper. Soil microbes bloomed during the warm rainy weather. Composted manure, wood ashes, and lime dust supplied necessary nutrients cheaply. The Yeoman plow disturbs upper layers so little that we can mow within a month. It can fracture hard pans down to thirty inch depth with proper attachments. Furthermore, we often plant grass seed or corn with pot seeders on each shank.

This unique pattern of contour plowing is known worldwide as key-line method. It originated in Australia where currently one third of the crop production uses it. We have found more forage yield on hill ridges as well as the basins since improving rain infiltration. With less rain runoff you get less erosion, fertilizer leeching, stream pollution, and mud holes. In fact, the forages are taking over wet holes. We used to get stuck often while round baling during rainy years. During droughts ridge soils are no longer dusty.

Our soils are darker, more granular like coffee grounds. Compaction is not a problem and we can mow faster on the smooth spongy soil. Soil organic matter tested seven percent on the Tugg Hill clay silt and four percent on sandy loam in Beaver Falls. All of our land receives similar nutrients in varied proportions to find the best economics. Aeration plowing improved yields profitably on our best Tugg Hill land and on our worst sandy loam. We will stop plowing when the earth worm population takes over the job of aeration.

It is evident that hundreds of acres of sandy soil in the Beaver River-Watson area suffer low productivity due to deep naturally formed iron hard pans. We found subsoiling with the Yeoman plow to be much cheaper than tiling which throws away valuable ground water and dissolved nutrients. The Yeoman plow goes deeper pulls easier has less maintenance cost and more attachment versatility than other subsoilers, chisel plows, and aerators. It’s useful for improving low productive land cheaply. Come see for yourself.

Participating in the replanting of six acres of clover on deer plots with our no-till grass seeder was an eye opener. Three inches of top soil has formed on sandy soil in just three years and now the hunting club is producing trophy deer.

I can now believe Allen Yeoman, inventor of our plow. He uses no-till planters and aeration plowing to build top soil of grazing land much faster than conventional farming loses it. After plowing prior to the warm rainy season he broadcasts phosphate fertilizer for the legumes. These produce nitrogen fertilizer for the grasses. Cattle or sheep contribute manure while mowing the forages. Grasses shed excessive root material when the tops are cutoff by animals or machines. Otherwise the roots would suffocate and starve from the lack of oxygen and food after losing leaf area. Microbes convert the root residue into humus and release nutrients for regrowth. On hilly land Australians build a series of dams in the gullies and flood irrigate with contour ditches. Trees planted in belts along contours improve water infiltration. Trees also lift nutrients from the subsoil into their leaves. Wind spreads the leaves giving the land a cheap fertilizer complete with trace minerals.

Agricultural scientists now agree with Yeoman that global warming could be reversed by sequestering atmospheric carbon dioxide and storing it in the soil as humus. Plants remove the gas as they grow soil microbes later convert dead plants into humus, a complex rich in carbon dioxide elements. Adding only one point six percent humus to the world’s agricultural top soils would reverse the global warming trend, according to Yeoman. Scientists add that agriculture is capable of sequestering twenty percent of annual carbon dioxide produced by human technology.

More humus is needed to improve crop yield, health, and cost. The growing population demands more crop production. Increased yield has come at the expense of less crop health because conventional agriculture mines away the humus. Microbes continually consume soil organic matter including some of the more stable humus. It must be replenished, usually by rotations including grass crops. Even in our corn belt we have lost over half of the soil organic matter and are becoming more dependent on pesticides to support our malnourished crops. According to agronomists the crops probably lack “vitamins” only available from healthy soils rich in microbes and humus. It works in my garden, never was better in twenty years experience.

Farmers in Australia are receiving carbon credit payments for building up soil humus. Likely America will follow suit once we understand the idea. They are also improving their soils and their profits rapidly with “pasture cropping.” At the start of the dry season they no-till grain into the pastures. As the native grasses go dormant the grain competes nicely. In a few years continuous cropping builds up enough humus on their worn out soils to reduce pesticide and chemical fertilizer requirement. The modest yields of grain are profitable since input costs are low. Years of bad weather are still profitable and the practice is spreading to areas beyond Australia. Some regions have been limited by rainfall. Tugg Hill should be better. We plant Master’s Choice grazing corn while aerating fields with our Yeoman plow. This high energy forage can be round baled. Our system eliminates the hiring of custom corn planters and purchase of pesticides to grow corn. Soil health is easy to sustain when producing continuous high yields of crops without rapid destruction of humus (typical of soil tillage). Our Tugg Hill land is too stony and the hills too steep for conventional tillage. A wing knife on each shank of the Yeoman plow folds back a one foot wide strip of sod as we aerate to subsoil depth. Pot seeders on each shank (four foot spacing), dribble out seed while the wing knife mixes it with soil. Germination was great even in the June drought on our sandy test plot. However, we need more corn starter fertilizer to compete with second cutting growth of hay.

We avoid muddy fall corn harvesting.. Hay fields are not as muddy as tilled fields. Furthermore, grazing corn planted early June is harvested at tassel stage in mid-August. The crop can out yield any other in that two month period. We can follow it with no-till, no kill planting of winter crops triticale and ryegrass on top of the summer crop. All have energy levels similar or higher than conventional cob corn silage without the excessive starch.

We are thrilled to hear that a Pennsylvania farmer produced fourteen tons of crop dry matter per acre annually. Experts think we could obtain ten tons per acre here using the BMR corn sorghum-sudan grass forage, brassicas, and millet followed by no-till planting of winter crops triticale, ryegrass, cereal rye, spelt, and vetch combinations. The winter crops are harvested or grazed a couple times until early June and then the fields disked lightly, limed, and manured .Then the cycle repeats with a new combination of these crops. This rotation maintains humus without a long time out to reestablish hay fields. However, a summer legume should be included to maintain soil nitrogen. Forage soybean is a promising choice for grazers, cattle eat the best part (big leaves) and it regrows rapidly. 

End.

 
Royal A. Purdy
Clear Choice © - Elysian ©; and Yeomans – Zeus Plow Dealer, Sales and Service
A. H. Tuttle and Company
1007 County Road 8
Farmington, NY.  14425
(315)-986-7007
Skype = clearchoiceelysian

Yeomans Keyline Plows, ...as your soil gets richer - so do you!