Beadle Conservation District
Clean. Clear. Conservation.
The Beadle CD has 4 sites, each 5acres in size, around the county that we have been working on to reduce their salinity and improve productivity. The landowners we are working with were gracious enough to allow the district to use 5 acres of their land to bring it back into production for them. All the sites used a different combination of saline tolerant vegetation, that we will share as we visit each individual site. We are currently in year 4 of a 5 year project. We have used different combinations of soil health practices to start achieving productivity.
Site 1: planted in mid-May 2018; July, cut to control weeds; replanted in Aug.
2019 –hay tonnage was incredible 27 bales on first cutting, over 1150#/bale (pics)
2020 –site looks good
2021: May – difficult to get soil samples
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Site 2:was planted a bit later – June 1st, 2018; the district took care of the weeds (mowed 2x) but not a very good stand. (pics)
2019: - west half was very wet – too wet to do anything with until after ground froze. We went out and broadcast seed in the areas that were not too deep with snow. The east half, we sprayed mid-July, and 2 weeks later mowed and planted saline tolerant cover crops. By the end of August, cover crops were looking good in areas of the east half. (pics)
2020: May’s site visit, site is starting to look promising. June – owner wants to cut what he can for hay. (beautiful stand of clover along edges)
2021: May – Difficult to get soil samples; Grasses planted on west end where they had drowned out in 2019
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Site 3: planted mid-June 2018; district mowed in July
2019: did weed control (mow); grazed over winter
2020: will cut for hay, grazed
2021: Drought made the soil to hard for obtaining a soil sample in May.
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Site 4: this was a dormant seeding – planted in mid November
traditionally a no-till site
2019: district mowed for weed control in July. Grasses coming nicely
2020: Cut for hay
2021: Drought made the soil to hard for obtaining a soil sample in May.
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