land to grow winter grain (Old Town, Ellsworth: for sale, contractor, live)

[boonelsewhere]

is land along Aygyle RD suitable to grow winter grains.

[Northern Maine Land Man]

Most of Argyle Road has a thin layer of forest duff over a layer of hard pan. There is little good soil for grains. Old potato fields are the best for grain.

[Submariner]

We have been advised that in the access trails that go through the treegrowth, we could plant oats and winter wheat as cover crops.

However for a while the summer and winter grains would be combating the preexisting weeds. The preexisting weeds [both annuals and biennials] have a large 'seedbank' within the soil [as many as 50,000 seeds per square yard of top soil]. It takes 5 years combating those weeds for the seedbank to dwindle down to 50% of it's original capacity [assuming that you can kill all of those weeds before any of them produce fresh seed to add back into the seedbank].

Also many of the perennial weeds will have roots that go as deep as 8 feet down. Tilling knocks them down, but the root systems have a lot of starch, and they will send up fresh stems next year. Their stored up starch reserve will feed them for many years as they send up fresh shoots each spring. If you can knocked those perennial shoots down before they open leaves, some of those perennials will need to be knocked down as many as 8 times before they finally give up.

If you do not till, then the battle would take much longer.

Our eldest son wants to use cover crops here. he and I both recently attended some workshops on using grain cover crops in treegrowth.

[boonelsewhere]

thanks for your value info.
i would like to stay away from old potato field, as you mention on the other post about nitrate (sp) is in the well water.

Originally Posted by Northern Maine Land Man

Most of Argyle Road has a thin layer of forest duff over a layer of hard pan. There is little good soil for grains. Old potato fields are the best for grain.

[boonelsewhere]

forest, i look into posible growing grains in or around Argyle area. i don't mind flood plain may be (10ys or 5yrs) area, but NOT wet land thou.
there are some property along Argyle Rd is on the market for sale. the price seem to be work able, even with the cost to clear and tilt, but NMLM said it does not have deep enough top soil to grow grain.
i do not plan to own any heavy equipments, i need to look into the cost have some one tilt the land.
i gave up the idea of no tilt, it is too much work battle with weeds

[Submariner]

My son tells me that one of the workshops he attended was advocating 'Buckwheat'.

That buckwheat is aggressive and invasive, will compete with all other weeds and will push them out.

Buckwheat can then be used for breads or livestock feed.

[Submariner]

On my land the 'hard pan' or 'ledge' is present.

As the land slopes toward the river, it descends down toward an embankment. The embankment is the normal boundary for the river's flood plain. About 40 feet back from the embankment [or should I say above the embankment], the ledge is at about 4 feet deep.

Underneath my house, we hit the ledge at about 4 foot deep.

However as you move further away from the river, you walk up a very shallow slope [this slope drops about 1 foot vertical for every 150 foot horizontal], On the up side of our house, and on toward the road, the ledge is deeper than 6 feet deep.

NMLM was at my farm, he dug a shallow 240 foot trench for me, he did a great job. He never dug deep enough to hit the ledge.

I think that for most of my land, the layer of forest duff on top of the ledge is 4 to 6 foot deep.

[boonelsewhere]

i think that is the best land to grow any kind of vegetables or grains.
next time when i am in Maine , i will drive by to see the area.
is it easy drive from Old Town to Howland on 116 then take route 2 back to Milford.

forest wrote:
I think that for most of my land, the layer of forest duff on top of the ledge is 4 to 6 foot deep.

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by boonskyler

i think that is the best land to grow any kind of vegetables or grains. next time when i am in Maine , i will drive by to see the area. is it easy drive from Old Town to Howland on 116 then take route 2 back to Milford.

Route 116 is good road.

Let me know when you are coming

Maybe I can give you a tour of the metropolitan section of Argyle.

I know of ~350 acres for sale here.

[boonelsewhere]

i ll take you up on this, we will be in Ellsworth on Sep 30 to meet with the contractor for a day, my wife can only few days away from her work. i sure once thing moving, i ll be back in Maine to check up on it.

forest wrote;
Let me know when you are coming

Maybe I can give you a tour of the metropolitan section of Argyle.