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<blockquote data-quote="Ebenezer" data-source="post: 1530956" data-attributes="member: 24565"><p>Same as fire ant mounds after the ants are gone. A deep mixing of soils topsoil and nutrients deeper is my guess. Ants leave mixed soil and nutrients. They had a study in the NC coastal plains years ago that mixing small amounts of subsoil up into the topsoil reduced total crop production. A study in SC decades ago showed that subsoil cuts completely sealed within a year in some typical piedmont soils. Subsoiling in spodic horizons is highly beneficial for many years. A quick run thru to say that some is soil related but plows, aerators or whatever create a hardpan at the depth of their zone of penetration or at the base of the point, tip, tooth, blade or shank. Where the tip of an aerator tooth stops, a compacted layer is created.</p><p></p><p> Wow, maybe I can win a bonus prize? What's behind door #2? :lol2: Aerators do work. How do they work? They loosen the top layer and with multiple passes create an expanding hardpan at the base of the tips. In the process of aeration the air gets to the soil, the bacteria thrive on oxygen instead of the fungi that live in soil that is not aerated, the bacteria consume the organic matter, the next crop gets a benefit from the conversion of the OM. When that season is gone, the soil is more deplete of OM than it was prior to aeration. The best aerator is plant roots. This also preserves OM and does not disrupt the fungi. If your subsoil is adverse, either condition it based on local recommendations, use plants and crops that can handle it, increase the height of your stop grazing rule in rotations, use specific crops or plants to modify it, increase fertility or applications or learn to live with it as it is. A lot of this is the basis of what is modernly known as "soil health" but Hugh Hammond Bennett was writing about it (without the benefit of much scientific research in the last 85 years) in books he wrote in the 30's and the work he promoted as natural resource management and erosion control.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ebenezer, post: 1530956, member: 24565"] Same as fire ant mounds after the ants are gone. A deep mixing of soils topsoil and nutrients deeper is my guess. Ants leave mixed soil and nutrients. They had a study in the NC coastal plains years ago that mixing small amounts of subsoil up into the topsoil reduced total crop production. A study in SC decades ago showed that subsoil cuts completely sealed within a year in some typical piedmont soils. Subsoiling in spodic horizons is highly beneficial for many years. A quick run thru to say that some is soil related but plows, aerators or whatever create a hardpan at the depth of their zone of penetration or at the base of the point, tip, tooth, blade or shank. Where the tip of an aerator tooth stops, a compacted layer is created. Wow, maybe I can win a bonus prize? What's behind door #2? :lol2: Aerators do work. How do they work? They loosen the top layer and with multiple passes create an expanding hardpan at the base of the tips. In the process of aeration the air gets to the soil, the bacteria thrive on oxygen instead of the fungi that live in soil that is not aerated, the bacteria consume the organic matter, the next crop gets a benefit from the conversion of the OM. When that season is gone, the soil is more deplete of OM than it was prior to aeration. The best aerator is plant roots. This also preserves OM and does not disrupt the fungi. If your subsoil is adverse, either condition it based on local recommendations, use plants and crops that can handle it, increase the height of your stop grazing rule in rotations, use specific crops or plants to modify it, increase fertility or applications or learn to live with it as it is. A lot of this is the basis of what is modernly known as "soil health" but Hugh Hammond Bennett was writing about it (without the benefit of much scientific research in the last 85 years) in books he wrote in the 30's and the work he promoted as natural resource management and erosion control. [/QUOTE]
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