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| I recently heard someone say something that "was a new one on me" involving brush piles. I farm in an area where a fair amount of land clearing still occurs. This often involves removing a 30-40 foot fence row or converting a partially wooded pasture to row crop production. When I take on this type of project, I often burn the piled brush in about a year and remove or bury the remaining root balls before attempting to crop the ground. My modivation is to get the ground fully cropped and obstacles out of the filed as soon as reasonable. One farmer I recently spoke with (someone I don't know well) commented that he cures such brush piles for several years before torching the piles so that the sap from burning trees doesn't "damage" the soil. He said this to me with a straight face. Was this guy messing with me or is there a factual/soil science basis in support of this (sap from trees has the potential to hurt soil productivity) ? Everything else the man said to me in our conversation told me the guy was dead serious. Any thoughts on this? Many thanks!
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curing brush piles ?
