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It is true, if you are not relying just on mechanically killing the mulch then timing rolling for flowering is not so critical and you can get the benefits of a more diverse mix. I think using a combination roller crimper and disk action, like the no-till drill would also allow for an earlier mechanical kill and therefore a more diverse covercrop mix without glyphosate It would be terrific if Charles Martin might publishing his designs to farm hack and get some more units built around the country. He mentioned in his farm show article that he was pondering next steps and if he would try and find a local manufacturer. Here is the link to the farm show article http://www.farmshow.com/a_article.php?aid=25646
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I would recommend looking at the roller crimper tool page. I will see if I can attach this forum post to it. The primary issue with the cimper with mixed covercrops is getting them to flower close enough to each other so that they will kill when they are rolled. If some are too far along they will produce viable seed, and others that are not mature enough may still have enough root energy to recover. If your roller is the standard I&J model based on the rodale design, you will want to make sure that your fall seedbed prep is very good. Because the roller is rigid, if the ground is anything but flat, it will ride up on ridges and miss hollows - which results in sections missing crimps. One of the developments I would like to see on farm hack is to develop a sectional roller that will follow ground contours and apply even ground pressure. Charles Martin in PA has addressed this with a roller mounted between the rows on a no-till corn planter which also has the advantage of seeding into a standing crop, rather than having to set the planter up to work through the rolled mulch. Hairy vetch is a great cover crop to mulch and provides wonderful weed supression while it is growing, but decomposes very rapidly. If there are perennial grasses, they will push through the vetch mat by mid July (if the vetch was killed mid june). Winter rye on the other hand - if planted at 140lbs/acre or more in good fertile soil (sometimes growing up to 7' tall), will provide a heavy mat of many inches that will not decompose significantly until the following season. I have had good luck last season planting crimson clover and winter rye together and having them bloom together in the spring. Since crimson clover is an annual, it also kills easily when flowering. I have used it as a mix this year with rye, and with winter wheat and winter barley. I have not done the rye vetch mixture for crimping in the past because the bloom dates have not been coordinated - and vetch in general has been harder to kill with a crimp until a little after full flower and seed pods start to show. However, I found on our farm that a disk harrow set without offset, or a no-till drill run over the vetch is far more effective in killing the vetch and can work several weeks earlier than the crimper. This season I am going back to planting a rye vetch mix again for crimping with this more aggressive method for killing the vetch - with the hope that the viney vetch will pull down the rye enough to be crimped with the disks of the no-till drill. There is so much to learn and experiment with in these approaches. I really look forward to hearing about your experiences.
Forum comment

Please feel free to post your best water catchment designs to the tools page of Farm Hack. I am sure that others would be really interested in learning from your experience. Use as many photos and drawings as you can! I am in the process of building upland holding ponds using earth berms and poly liners for irrigation and animal watering, so I would be interested in how what you are working on, and your experience might be relevant to our farm.
Forum comment

I think this is why this community is so important - to prioritize and help folks along to gather more of the skills which would otherwise keep them dependent or reduce possibilities for innovation. I think that is why "hacker spaces" are popping up that enable access to more tools, some of which are not needed every day, but make a job from being a struggle to a pleasure. There are several farms in our area that rent out space to equipment shops, so that they have quick access. Our farm does work for our own operation and a couple others, so there are a lot of models towards shared ownership/access and scale that justifies the infrastructure. Some of the approaches are to reduce the cost of the tools to accomplish the task, or to save folks from investing in tools that are less important - and that is where feedback is especially important based on what folks are actually using. For example, there was a guy at a recent Farm Hack event who had a hand held metal circular saw that he thought was the best thing going - I had looked at them and the price always kept me away, but he made a great case for it. He didn't have the tank rental fees, gas etc. and hardly touched his torch or even the plasma cutter. In two years of my tank rentals I think I probably could have paid for it. I also just talked with a group of farmers and they just got a TIG just so they could work on their aluminum irrigation piping. I have not made the investment myself, on the tig or the mill yet, as I can't justify it just for our operation yet, but I have been talking about sharing the shop with some other folks and adding those things in. As our operation diversifies and grows the shop becomes more important. Since we serve three farms and have a good deal of cooperative relationships I think that is what makes it possible to invest in some of this- but not all at once. I know I have a bunch of stainless tanks that I will need in the next year or so, and that may push a TIG - but even then it may be a shared investment. The mill will be a similar story . There always seem to be several in the $3000 range around here - as you mention the skill is the big factor. In this case wouldn't invest alone, but with a machinest friend of mine who is doing custom work who might co-locate. He wouldn't need it every day either. I provide the space, he provides expertise and it is conveniently available when it is needed- but for both of us the upcoming projects need to justify the space, the time and the expense. Ideally I would like to see farmhack help link up the services you mention with farmers through the tools pages. If done well, the documentation is good enough to take it to a custom shop, or if the skills and tools are there on-farm then all the better. Some of the tools don't need to be owned but I think farm hackers should know what is possible and how to access tools. I see it as helping each other breaking down barriers, reduce the intimidation factor for some of these skills and become more independent through greater collaboration.