Through the use of GPS and years of data we will hopefully determine how much if any advantage is gained by hauling dirt into highly eroded sidehill areas.

The area circled in black is another severely eroded sidehill area that I hauled dirt on this fall.

It is .18 acres and yielded 20 bu/A - soybeans

The tan areas are terraces.

This pic shows where I started.

Here is the worst area which has rocks and gravel on the surface.

The finished product.

 

Below was the most severely eroded sidehill I've worked on. This severely eroded sidehill washes even with No-Till. The soil is sandy and light colored clay and we just can't get it to stabilize.

This area is .7 acres.

It yielded 90 bu/A - corn

14% + slope

Here you see the comparison of the black soil hauled out of the terrace next to the sandy/clay surface we've been farming.

I could make a round trip with the scraper in 1.5 minutes.

The scraper holds 5000 lbs of soil.

Note the terrace is almost level full in this area.

I estimate that I hauled out 400 tons of soil from this terrace and spread it out over the .7 acre area above it. Fortunately the terraces were here or most of the topsoil would have washed to the creek and been lost forever.

Here is a picture taken at the same angle and you can see the original soil level in the terrace.

I dug down 5 feet before I got out of the silted in soil.

 

Back to Satellite start page

Back to ARK Farm Page