We were just offered a 6 acre field that we are considering for a planting of winter wheat this week. The price is right but the field looks awful. It has been fallow for 3 years and is nothing but tall weeds. Someone suggested burning it first. Does anyone have a suggestion for how best to prepare this field quickly without chemicals? Thanks!

Personally, I would bushhog it, work it up and put it to wheat. Wheat is aleopathic and will get rid of a lot of those weeds on it's own. I had an area that was persistent in Poison Hemlock. Nothing I tried would get rid of it. I disked it down, plowed and disked again then packed it and drilled in wheat. The hemlock has never came back and that was 4 years ago.

Do you think it matters if it's moldboarded versus chiseled? I have access to either type of plow.

Cut it, roll it up into rounds and wrap them. Those "weeds" will have a lot of grass in it and will become dry cow or heifer food. Why waste it?

There are advantages and disadvantages to burning. Most seeds get destroyed this way and it is easy, but of course you also burn a lot of insects, many of which are beneficial. With the smoke going up in the air, so will a lot of the plant nutrients that are contained in the weeds. Brush hogging the weeds , like Jerry suggested, and then incorporating them into the soil adds a lot of organic matter, but you will have to take the subsequent steps to keep the weeds from germinating through adequate cultivation. That's a process that organic farmers have to go through quite often. The easiest, but in terms of soil health and finances costliest way would be to apply herbicides. It also the most unimaginative way.

Jerry - I think you might mean allelopathic (inhibits growth of other plants) although I've never heard of wheat doing that.

IMHO - that's a lot of vegetation to bury with a moldboard.

My land was in CRP for years. They required it to be burned every so often. I heard and read in a few places that burning sets nutrient buildup in the soil back from three to seven years depending upon the element and the source I read it.

Shallow/skin/skim plowing, then disk and drill and pack will keep the weed seeds near the surface and any that cogerminate with the wheat will winter kill, giving the wheat a good head start. After wheat you can go wheat again after fallowing a few times or go to some other crop.

My 2 cents.

Yes, I meant allelopathic! Thank you Geoff! That would be a lot to bury, but if it were bush hogged and maybe disked first I think it would work out fine. The main thing would be getting it properly disked and rolled after to firm the seed bed. And here, I'm going only from my own experience, but the wheat suppressed 99 percent of the weeds in my patch, and after I continued a rotation on the field the most troublesome, noxious weeds did not return.

Heading out now to disc and plow it...I'll let you know how it turns out!

Try and plant it as late as possible and let mother nature take care of any late season annuals that would spring up. If it were mine I would frost seed with a mixed hay mix and cut for wheat hay as it flowers. Then repeat plowing process and plant to spelts for 2016.

I would mow and bale the grass first if it was me, there is a lot of cow feed there. Good luck n what ever you do.

Well this is what it looked like after about 5 passes with the disc and nothing else. It was tough going with shrubs and rocks to deal with, and certain areas of thatch took forever to break up. We did not get it drilled in time before the rain, unfortunately. We will try again when it dries out and see how it goes. I stink of diesel fumes now and my team gave me a dirty look when I put them away this evening.