All You Need to Know About Cultivating the Soil
If you are looking for ways to help your crops grow healthier and better, you’ve arrived at the right place. Our experts at West Hills Tractor have created this guide to highlight a few perks of cultivating your soil. Keep reading to learn more, and for more information, visit us at our dealership in Jonesborough, TN. We are happy to welcome our customers from Johnson City and Greeneville.
What is Cultivating?
As you may know, soil cultivation is one of the oldest agricultural practices in the world. It helps remove weeds from the soil and loosens the ground to let air, water, and nutrients penetrate deeper, resulting in the growth of your yields.
Why Should You Cultivate?
There are various benefits of cultivating the soil.
Exposure to the elements can make your soil crusty over time. However, when you cultivate your land, you help it loosen up and break, allowing air, water, and nutrients to reach deeper levels. The roots of your crops can use these nutrients and help your plants stay healthy and grow well. Also, cultivation makes it easier for your germinated seeds to grow up out of the soil.
The second benefit of soil cultivation is that it brings the weed seeds buried deep into the soil to the surface. This helps them wither away on the surface instead of germinating and taking away the nutrients intended for your crops. Most importantly, cultivation increases water retention and reduces the need for any extra water.
When Should You Cultivate?
The best time to cultivate your land is when it is dry. If you use your cultivator over wet soil, you’ll only compact the soil further. Also, in most cases, you won’t even require cultivating too deep. All you’ll need to do is surface cultivation to remove weeds and improve soil health.
Another good time to cultivate is before planting any seeds or adding compost or fertilizer. This is when your fertilizer can penetrate deeper into the soil and help your grains to germinate and thrive and decrease the chance of rainfall runoff.
How Do You Cultivate?
When cultivating your land, avoid digging too deep, as it can reduce the water retention capabilities of your land and increase the time it will take for the soil to dry. Ideally, you’ll want to create loose soil only for a couple of inches at the top.
Also, you’ll want to make sure you aren’t damaging any of the roots when cultivating once your crops have started to grow. Be careful and work only between the rows and avoid disturbing any plants.
You’ll need the correct implements to make sure you enjoy a bountiful harvest. We at West Hills Tractor have an impressive collection of farm equipment for sale, and our friendly staff can give you a complete tour of the available options. We can suggest models for your budget and help you choose a machine that’s perfect for your farm work. To peruse our inventory, swing by our dealership in Jonesborough, TN, where we happily serve our friends from Johnson City and Greeneville.