Today I started working near Middletown. I moved straight east to the east side of the coal mine at Elkhardt. You may remember recently that I mentioned that based on borings to 5 feet deep I thought soil moisture was in good shape for now. Today I saw further confirmation of that fact. A tile was running north of Cornland. I am going to use terms I previously explained so if you don't understand, check this link.
Tile running means that the subsoil is saturated or as full of available water as it can get. Our soils hold roughly 2 inches of available water per foot. The topsoil is a bit dry, but only the top inch or so. Some of the wetter soils I sampled were still a little wet right below the surface. Does all this mean we should not be concerned about drought or low moisture? Not at all. It just means that moisture is adequate for not and will remain that way untll we get some crops or weeds growing. Disturbing the soil will dry it out to the depth of tillage, so if you think we will have dry weather this spring, it would be good to keep tillage shallow. It also means that we will still need 15 or so inches of well timed rainfall to rais the forecast record crop. Are all soils saturated? Probably not, but they are at or near field capacity.
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