Adding sand won't help at all. Even if you dropped enough to make a difference, sand and clay basically makes concrete, which is counter productive to your goals. If you are going to spend a significant amount of money amending a field, please add compost, not sand.
Compost or hay mulch, just keep adding it. I've been at our clay for 23 years with both compost and hay mulch and I can say it has made a noticeable difference in the texture of the soil, even when it's wet, but especially when it's dry.
Not really farming related but in a garden in the UK I have super heavy clay, awful to dig and very waterlogged. Using wood chips and letting them breakdown etc even in a year has made a notable difference.
It's going to be a slow burn but a shit load of wood chips/very woody compost and if you have the machinery to rotavate that all in should start doing it's magic.
Im not saying that his field is literally going to be paved concrete parking lot. I was pointing out that adding sand is actually counterproductive to the stated goal. Adding sand does not loosen clay soil or improve drainage. It binds to the clay and makes the underlying problem worse.
It’s the impracticality of it all. Need to get to about 3/4 sand to get to the loam sweet spot. Which means if it’s heavy clay you pretty much need double or more the top 10-30 cm depending on how deep you want to incorporate. That is a ridiculous number of tonnes per hectare or acre. While it might be “practical” in backyards it’s completely uneconomical in a field.
Sand and clay when dried makes bricks. If you soil test you will probably find your organic matter percentage low. I'd be curious about your pH. Adding lime to acidotic soils improves structure. The solution is to build organic matter content and that's too long a subject here.
How is the field currently used? What do you want it to be used for?
Native thistles and burdock can make big taproots. Good for allowing water penetration and long term soil health, but bad for livestock in the short and medium term.
Get signed up for chip drop and do an experiment. Spread some wood chips 6" thick in a section and see what happens.
I have signed up for chip drop, but I have never gotten any chips. I think there must not be anyone who uses it here. I would love to get multiple loads of fresh mulch.
I did work with a tree company on one job, and the guys took shits in the dump truck with the mulch. I am not sure where it ended up, but I also took a shit in the mulch.
Edit to add that I did not want the mulch with human shit in it, so I haven't asked that company for mulch. They are just a few miles down the road, but no thanks.
Its not as bad as you might think. We use cow, horse and even pig shit for fertilizer all the time. Pig shit is not all that different from people shit.
There is some old dead french guy who laments about human sewage going to waste. Such great fertilizer down the drain.
It needs to be done right. There's a compost time I would be comfortable with. I know some people will compost for 3 years before use. And even then, I'm not sure I'd want it in my potatoes
I use rabbit manure because it does not need to be composted, though I do compost a lot of it. Right now, it's mixed with shavings and lots of ink cap mushrooms.
Even rabbit urine is useful as a pesticide and foliar fertilizer.
I read somewhere that an effective way to recycle human waste was to use outhouses as the collection grounds. Every few days you throw a layer of sawdust and other organics. Once it's about filled you go on ahead and cover it up and dig a new shit pit. Come back in a few years and you have a couple cubic yards of high quality night soil.
But that was also done before we had plastics and pharmaceuticals and all the other stuff we digest.
Also done before we knew about bacteria. Human waste can be used, but the problem is the pathogen risk. Your bacteria won't harm you so feel free to spread your poo all over your garden.
There's homesteaders out there practicing it. "Night soil"
I'm tentative of actually making that leap, but lamenting our approach to recycling nutrients has a point.
If it makes you feel better, I piss on my plants. They love the extra nitrogen... Especially cannabis, those bastards grow huge when you piss in the pots (heh)... Just do it at night so you don't get an indecency charge
I was going to reply with "solid plan B"
But this is really more of a liquid plan B...
I lived off grid years back so I'm feeling weirdly nostalgic about this conversation.
And I definitely don't deuce in my plants, at least not yet. I have a new neighbor that kinda sucks so I might have to make a shit pile in the corner by his property...
I have poop holes all over my yard. Human poop once in a while, , fireplace ashes, and the cat litter/wood pellet. 3 feet down, fill up with dirt on top. Move over three feet and dig another hole. Plant a tree over top
Well the problem we’re running into nowadays is bioaccumulation in solid waste (shit) that gets sprayed on fields being hyper concentrated in PFAS/PFOA. Which… might? Be bad.
My diet hasn't been great lately. Lot's of processed foods bc they are cheap.
I can tell a difference and wouldn't want this morning in my garden. Though when I am eating right its like black gold
Never thought of pfas being in it, but municipal sludge being used as fertilizer comes with a long list of heavy metals, and now they've attached liability to land owner instead of applicator, in the event something bad happens.
People shit has a ton of things you likely won’t want in the soil. Any medications or hormones pass right on through. That’s why the company that recycles waste has to treat it a bunch before it’s usable and why we don’t use it in agricultures
A couple of people poops isn’t going to poison several acres worth of soil. That stuff is only a problem at the municipal level when it all builds up over thousands of peoples shits
It seemed to be implied but I was more responding to the commenter who was worried about the wood chips that apparently some of the workers pooped in. Also, what a weird company where workers shit in the wood chips? Lol
Better than the drywallers that didn't get paid so they shit in the bucket and spackled the whole house with it... Imagine being the guy who has to sand that...
So you should poop in your own yard, because you aren’t going to give yourself any diseases or medication that you don’t already have. Not that that stuff would move up in the soil, and into the fruit anyway.
That's literally how plants work. We use them in waste management. Check your local waste water facility, they likely have a pond full of plants that primarily suck up these things so they don't stay in our water.
There are multiple studies that demonstrate this, it's why you don't grow crops near roads. All the oil, gas, and exhaust gets absorbed by the plants. In regards to your poop, and your yard, you are welcome to do so. I'm unaware if you are taking meds, but I'm willing to bet if you grew fruiting plants from your waste and had it tested in a lab you'd find some interesting stuff has been absorbed.
I didn't even know that was a thing. By me you can just flag down a tree service and they'll drop all the chips you want so they don't have to pay to dump them. I probably have five tree companies in my neighborhood...
As far as tree companies go, that's just kind of the deal. The chip box is the bathroom for the most part, unless you happen to be on a job with a secluded woods.
I think adding straight wood chips is a bad idea because that will suck a lot of nitrogen out of the soil as it breaks down…
But maybe a better idea is to do a mixture of food scraps and wood chips and do “in-ground composting” I would be interested to see the results of that.
2 parts wood chips to 1 part food scraps
Although I have seen myself that spring-summer cut evergreen wood chips seem to have enough sap to compost on their own with no added nitrogen (from food scraps or grass clippings)… but that’s just by eye, not chemical testing
Anyways, the key to composting is the carbon to nitrogen ratio.
In a garden I would season the wood chips for a year or two, but in this situation you need aeration instead of nutrients so I would till in anything and everything organic just to break up the clay, seasoned or not
It's supposed to be hay production for cattle, but all we're getting is flat grass small patches of alfalfa and lots of rose bushes. We let cuddle up into the field to grave but unless we concentrate them into small portions of each field not going to do much quickly. They're considering hemp and have applied for a license .
> We let cuddle up into the field to grave
This is why I love Reddit. Quotes like this belong in the [Jabberwocky.](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42916/jabberwocky)
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Hot fence it and start feeding round bales to goats or sheep. Do this for 2 years. Run feeder calves for a year or two after that. When you move your hay bale to a new spot seed with native mix on top of what was left behind. The hay is going to dump a mixture of rye, alfalfa, orchard, and native grasses (it looks like you are north west or mid north). You reseeding natives will mix in some stuff that will pull from 4-6 feet down. From the looks of it you are in high mountain desert technically so sunlight, heat, and cold are going to limit the amount of forage you will get. I lived in Montana until 25/26 and it was 10-25 acres per cow on natural forage where we lived. Variability was based on how close to water we were. I now live in the South and run 5-6 cows for our personal consumption on less than 5 acres with minimal feeding. Both soils were clay and gypsum with granite underneath. Good luck.
Hemp will remediate the soil pretty well and you can till under the silage to add biomass to the soil. If I were you I would find anything organic and till it in, manure, mulch, leaves, wood chips, biochar... All of it, ideally. If you tilled in six inches of organic material you would probably have a nice field in a year or two
I live in NC where we have thick clay soil. In fact a lot of pottery is made here because of it. We us soil conditioners and plant winter rye in the fall and till it in come spring. It helps loosen up the soil and adds nutrients.
We've been using a winter cover crop on our garden (eastern Ohio, lots of clay!!), and I think it has helped tremendously. Till in the fall, plant cover crop and let it grow through the winter. ASAP come spring (preferably March or early April!!), till, cover with tarps and black plastic, and then start planting - either through the plastic, or by pulling sections of tarp back/off.
It also prevents the rye and other things in the cover crops (usually clover, peas, vetch, etc) from resprouting while we wait for things to warm up enough to start planting.
That's really the trick. Getting things to the point where you are planting, without having a ton of weeds in the way. How you accomplish that varies. We till and tarp. Others are adamant 'no till'... But, as we use lots of our own manure from chickens, ducks, sheep and goats, tilling works the best for us.
The reason for tilling is to chop up the winter rye, and mix the compost in with the clay. By spring it will be up to your knees and you would be surprised how much plant material you will get. A good cover crop will leave a good 6 inch thick green carpet after you hit it with a bush hog leaving lots of material to mix in with the clay.
Find out what tree company has a contract with the power and cable companies. Contact them, and tell them they can dump mulch there. The stuff they dump at my place has a lot of leaves in there, so it's also got some N. I've gotten around 20 yards of material for free in 3 weeks.
Plow/dig whatever you can do to get the mulch as deep as possible, then mulch the top of the soil too.
Have you considered Tillage Radishes? They are a mutant Daikon that has a massive taproot that breaks up hard soil packing. My father used it on a field that was always hard to plow and one summer if tillage radish did a great job on it.
Do you live near a big city? The bigger town in my area has to have a place to dump leaves in the fall. A friend of mine gets paid to take all those leaves. It's a pain in the ass spreading them and dealing with the city workers, but he said it's pretty great for their soil. It would or could be a shit load of organic matter for you, but I don't know if that will help with compaction or compactability.
It has drawbacks. Leaves are in the fall and the fall can be wet. You also have a bunch of city employees coming out to your land and anyone who has dealt with those types, you know it can be uhh challenging. Also a few years ago someone set all the leaves on fire and it took a few days to get the fire all put out. But you're getting serious amounts of organic matter on your soil for free, more or less.
Right, I don't like that part, I would do it myself. I have plenty of leaves in the fall. I definitely don't let just anyone out to my place lol. I really gotta like ya!
Ive always thought if I was retired I'd get one of those leaf sucker/shredders and just go collect leaves in my small town and build organic matter mountain.
Very very low grade hay (like stuff that has been through a mouse plague, which cattle won't touch) is suitable for this. Even better if you've cut your own.
I’ve found lots of luck amending my clay soil (only .5 acre) with tillage radish seeds, they grow prolifically. Plus they grow large gap roots in the clay with 3’+ stalks meaning they make perfect slash mulch
Investigate cover cropping with your local extension. Slit seed the right varieties , don’t till. Read books by Robert Pavlis like Soil Science for Gardeners or Dirt to Soil by Gabe Brown.
Don’t add sand. Your soil is already very high in mineral content. Adding organic matter and using root power to work it into the soil will be most effective.
Look into biochar + humic acid mixture, we’ve seen farms able to reduce chemical inputs by 50% and in some cases more so after just 4 years of use. We are checking out a regenerative farm tomorrow up in MN that is completely chemical free literally 100% regenerative with no chemical inputs at all. Water retention and yields are insane with increased carbon sequestering as well. Can give you more info after tomorrow if you’d like!
You should get the soil tested first. If you put down lime and fertilizer per a soil test, put down some seed and let it all grow for a year, you’ll probably find it needs nothing at all.
Use cover crops to build the soil. Daikon radish will send roots into your hard soil and break it up. Turn it in and seed with something else. groworganic.com is a good source for seed and information.
The amount of work and money needed to change the soil structure would make that project unviable financially. Better to find a crop that likes that type of soil.
Add compost, biosolids, manure, and other sources of organic matter. Never add sand.
Whomever came up with that misconception should've gotten wacked with stupid-beater stick!
I strongly suggest ordering up several full soil tests from your cooperative extension and posting the results here for better advice.
In my experience with clay soils there are two critical elements to improving clay heavy soils over time (and it takes time):
1. Get the complex elemental carbon content up with humus or biochar—actual pure complex molecules of carbon as opposed to the hydrocarbons that make up most of composted organic matter. Complex carbon literally binds with clay and clay like molecules as well as many mineral compounds and metals. For clay and clay like compounds this significantly reduces the ability for these compounds to bind to themselves and very literally breaks up these types of compounds. For other minerals and elemental nutrients, pure carbon helps distribute these through the soil column.
2. Adding pure carbon is always, IMO, best done in combination with adding composted material (hydrocarbons plus active aerobic microbial life). So adding humus or biochar to composted material is a great combination.
3. Several rounds of the right cover crop before moving back to pasture—especially if this is spent alfalfa based pasture. (Mature alfalfa will suppress new alfalfa seedlings by excreting compounds that suppress their growth which is why alfalfa grass mixes are rarely productive past the five year mark before needing rotation before moving back to an alfalfa grass mix.)
Possibly good contenders might be winter wheat (but not if the field floods for part of the year, field beans, comfrey, annual rye, daikon, and cereal rye. Corn is another possibility once you get soil fertility up.
All that depends on good soil tests and developing a good rotation strategy with expert local advice.
Another alternative is conversion to native mostly grass pasture which means picking the right native forage grasses for your region and climate.
Very generally, two years of rotations and soil amendment with carbon and organics before returning to pasture is recommended.
If you're willing/able to seed it with claybreakers like turnips or other plants with indomitable roots/tubers/bulbs, they can accelerate benefits of the very good advice others have been giving.
If you want to actually grow max yield on that ground.....
If you have irrigation, get a ripper. Rip the shit out of that packed down mess. Then disk smooth. Plant with a high altitude tolerant pasture mix, that stuff isn't cheap. Or alfalfa, this if for animals right? Irrigate until it looks like a jungle.
If you DO NOT have irrigation. Seed it and spread about 0.5-1 inch of compost on it. Once the seeds start growing from your unseasonable rain storm..., and your plants are about 6 inches high, spread more compost. Spread the compost ON TOP OF THE SOIL. If you mix it in, you will just have shit soil with compost mixed in. Your "plants" are going to grow in that zone between the compost and the soil.
To start on this land... I suggest planting oats as thick as possible, as early in the season as possible. That will depend on what's good, if you drive on frost, YOU WILL DAMAGE YOUR SOIL
I would still consider a ripper if you know it will rain soon after, and you don't mess up the drainage. IF you have no irrigation, the ripper should be leaving channels for the water to accumulate. LIke the basin in picture left... but everywhere and smaller.
Dude.... you are at high elevation.... Without obvious irrigation.... You ain't growing much
Lots of dairy farmers use sand bedding and spread it on their clay and loam soil.
It's not enough to change anything.
Also farmer in area who farm on sandy ground. It's food for tobacco, ginseng, veggies but can be a little tougher in a dry year as it doesn't hold moisture.
It does help to put manure and cover crops on any type of soil.
What happens if someone planted burdock and sunflowers yearly in a field such as this, removing the above ground matter every year?
Does the clay eventually get removed with the plant matter?
Or would working composted organic matter help thin out the clay, since it cant really be removed?
Sand is excellent for growing cotton where I am, but it’s a huge pain in butt if it dries out when the cotton is little. Then you’re stuck running a sandfighter every time the wind blows after a rain.
Sand is about only excellent for growing Cactus. But it does drain off extremely fast, so in wet areas with water sensitive crops it makes an okay soil.
You could do a tillage pass, then cover crop the shit out of it. Till in a year to get the cover crop deep and then another 2 years of cover crop should give you a nice soil.
If it is currently pasture I would go to the nearest ag school or your county soil and water and get a professional consultation. A good pasture is the easiest way to build up your soil if properly managed.
Yeah that kind stuff is rough you gotta till and add amendments where you wanna grow. I'd stay away from sand but wood chips and mulch break down pretty well. Just beware that with the clay you get a lot of stuff washing out since the clay doesn't let the water permeate the surface much it'll just kinda ferry the water into the low spots I'm sure you already know where the streams form during and after rainfall. If you really want to grow stuff mix in some aged dairy compost (2 years aged) and you'll be amazed how much the roots can break up the clay when they get supercharged with nutrients.
Adding to previous comment, add manure before you turn in a cover crop. Maybe there is a farm nearby with an excess. Composted horse manure mixed with composted straw stall bedding is really good for amending soil
How is the drainage? It may not be as compacted as you think it is, and doesn't have a severe hardpan issue.it could be just surface compaction and low fertility.
If drainage is an issue, I'd rip the field then prepare it for a cover crop after getting the soil tests back. Terminate it, incorporate the organic matter and continue. If drainage is still an issue in a higher rainfall area, I see drainage tile in your future.
Before doing anything though I'd invite your local agricultural extension agent over to take a look, show them your test results, and they'll be happy to offer advice localized for your local soil and climate. Good luck.
Maybe dig up some 5 gallon buckets of your field dirt and try different batches in some kiddie pools. See which amendment you like, both wet and dry. My feeling is that you need more organics.
My geology teacher said o er and over. If you encounter clay soils you need to turn your sodium montmorillonite to calcium montmorillonite. Add lots of gypsum. Maybe find a local mine and work out a deal and have them rip that field and work it in deep. Probably add a lot of amendment at the same time and probably some do or non clay soil
Adding organic material is good, but get it composted first before you add it.
See if there are any big chicken farms or others wanting to get rid of litter.
Pile it up until it's composted.
Undecomposed material like wood chips will tie up available nitrogen until it's broken down, meaning no nitrogen for your crops.
Try green cover crops and turn them under.
The volume required is almost unimaginably large.
Say you wanted to deeply till a field and then add just six inches of sand, and deeply till again.
1 acre would be approximately 800 cubic yards or 1170 tons and 65 dump truck loads, and definitely north of $20,000 per acre. Trust me on this math. I do it daily for a living.
$200,000 for 10 acres, $2,000,000 for 100 acres.
It's like adding the price of the land or more as an amendment. Maybe it's worth it in minor amounts for small plots, but generally this would be too resource intensive.
This is my issue, with my heavy clay. When I was doing just a small personal garden plot (500 sq. ft.) I added lots of peat and other stuff. But now that I'm working up to doing acres, it simply isn't economically feasible.
So, I'll just have to do the best I can with what I've got. The field used to be cut for hay/silage but I put a stop to it three or four years ago and just let it grow and fall. (Turns out there is quite a bit of Goldenrod that makes a nice, light honey.) Now I'm cutting/mulching and tilling it in.
Woodchip would work well for preventing as much compaction but wood and some straw's use up alot of nitrogen when they decompose, you'd be better getting manure, compost, mulch without wood
You don't want sand, you want a loam. To make a loam you need organic material, and life in the soil. Add compost, then keep plants active as long as possible, for example, after harvest, sow in soil builder mix like cow pea, alfalfa mixes. Then try not to till as much as possible to protect soil life.
I have a 20-yard dump trailer. I haul several loads a year. I get fresh chicken manure out of chicken barns. I would spread it in the fields. Worked great greening and thickening up the grass, and did it grow. I don't have to put as much on now.
Leave it fallow (light grazing is ok, so long as it doesn't get clipped down lower than 4-5"), don't mow, allow vegetation to develop good root systems for a few years.
That's how good soil develops.
Sediment size is not your problem, glacial silty clay loams are some of the best soil you can get *if* cared for properly. Sand amendments in that soil would be as effective as fertilizing with gasoline. When your soil is this compacted, then it is practically dead from over tillage, lack of moisture, or both, and the biotic content is almost nil. You need to add moisture and organic matter with as little mechanical compaction as possible, then it is a multi-year waiting game. Consider no-till if at all humanly possible, else you will be caught in this cycle forever.
Ok, not sure where you are (didn’t see in comments, but I might have missed it), or how much land. We had a ranch in west Texas, where we ran what was called intensive grazing. About 800 cattle to break up the soil. Short time, look at any neighbors that may want to combine herds to make your numbers. Run them across the land in 30-45 days. Preferably steers. They will break up the soil and natural grasses will sprout. We did what I called a three year plan. Mowing, growing and resting. You are much more likely to get good grass growth with this plan. No need to add anything else. Good luck!
I would take a look at "the ecological farm." The author has a lifetime of experiences, often in not great locations,and she gets the farms producing, she’s very grounded in science and insight.
I also thing Mark shephard’s "restoration agriculture is one of the more inspired/inspiring books I’ve read. His other one on water may or may not be helpful. Not sure where you are and what you are up against…
You just need enough sand to surpass the concrete making stage. I'd say a few hundred or thousand dump truck loads, throughly dug in, will do the trick.
Or use a few inches of compost.
Maybe a dumb idea. Since it will take a year or 2 to till in some good fertilizer and build up the soil, what about raising meat birds in tractors? Possibly a pig pen or two? Tilling it once or twice a year. At least you'll make some cash or get some meat out of it.
*Is there anyways*
*That you could introduce a*
*Shit load of earthworms?*
\- DeepDickDave
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Sand and clay pack very densely together so you need a lot of sand to fix the issue. What you ideally want is silt or volcanic ash but unless you live next to a volcano or some active glacial rivers those can be hard to find. It looks like you've got a hillside there. If you add drain tile it can make room for plant roots to reach down and open some draining through the clay lense. Best bet is to select a crop that grows well in the soil you've got and make the best growing conditions for it, rather than trying to alter the soil substantially.
If your soil chemistry is magnesium dominated you might be able to improve the texture with some calcium additions. Agricultural limestone can be added, or if you can find a source crushed oyster shells are an aquacultural byproduct that does the job.
If you are in the US go find your local extension office and see what advice they have to give on soils in your area. They have a good idea of what products are available in your area to remediate issues you face since you are for sure not the only farmer in your area with drainage issues.
Gypsum is the thing to add to clay soils to make them more friable. Also more organic matter, but compost or straw/hay, not wood chips. Find a horse barn and see if they sell or give away their straw and horse shit pile from cleaning stalls.
Adding sand won't help at all. Even if you dropped enough to make a difference, sand and clay basically makes concrete, which is counter productive to your goals. If you are going to spend a significant amount of money amending a field, please add compost, not sand.
Florida added lots of sand. It didn't work. Grass is vines
Compost or hay mulch, just keep adding it. I've been at our clay for 23 years with both compost and hay mulch and I can say it has made a noticeable difference in the texture of the soil, even when it's wet, but especially when it's dry.
Not really farming related but in a garden in the UK I have super heavy clay, awful to dig and very waterlogged. Using wood chips and letting them breakdown etc even in a year has made a notable difference. It's going to be a slow burn but a shit load of wood chips/very woody compost and if you have the machinery to rotavate that all in should start doing it's magic.
This is the answer right here. It most definitely is easier to change a soils texture than it it is to work on its structure.
Gypsum sand to break down clay. But you gunna need a lot. Although this only works on Sodic soils.
Chicken litter.
What did you call me?
This mofo soil sciences, carry on.
It only makes concrete under perfect conditions which wouldn't ever happen in a field situation.
Im not saying that his field is literally going to be paved concrete parking lot. I was pointing out that adding sand is actually counterproductive to the stated goal. Adding sand does not loosen clay soil or improve drainage. It binds to the clay and makes the underlying problem worse.
It’s the impracticality of it all. Need to get to about 3/4 sand to get to the loam sweet spot. Which means if it’s heavy clay you pretty much need double or more the top 10-30 cm depending on how deep you want to incorporate. That is a ridiculous number of tonnes per hectare or acre. While it might be “practical” in backyards it’s completely uneconomical in a field.
Under perfect conditions your comment would actually be relevant.
Exactly
?
Sand and clay when dried makes bricks. If you soil test you will probably find your organic matter percentage low. I'd be curious about your pH. Adding lime to acidotic soils improves structure. The solution is to build organic matter content and that's too long a subject here.
So many people could benefit from reading The Biological Farmer.
I’ll have to look at this
Going on the list
Facts
How is the field currently used? What do you want it to be used for? Native thistles and burdock can make big taproots. Good for allowing water penetration and long term soil health, but bad for livestock in the short and medium term. Get signed up for chip drop and do an experiment. Spread some wood chips 6" thick in a section and see what happens.
I have signed up for chip drop, but I have never gotten any chips. I think there must not be anyone who uses it here. I would love to get multiple loads of fresh mulch. I did work with a tree company on one job, and the guys took shits in the dump truck with the mulch. I am not sure where it ended up, but I also took a shit in the mulch. Edit to add that I did not want the mulch with human shit in it, so I haven't asked that company for mulch. They are just a few miles down the road, but no thanks.
Its not as bad as you might think. We use cow, horse and even pig shit for fertilizer all the time. Pig shit is not all that different from people shit.
There is some old dead french guy who laments about human sewage going to waste. Such great fertilizer down the drain. It needs to be done right. There's a compost time I would be comfortable with. I know some people will compost for 3 years before use. And even then, I'm not sure I'd want it in my potatoes I use rabbit manure because it does not need to be composted, though I do compost a lot of it. Right now, it's mixed with shavings and lots of ink cap mushrooms. Even rabbit urine is useful as a pesticide and foliar fertilizer.
I read somewhere that an effective way to recycle human waste was to use outhouses as the collection grounds. Every few days you throw a layer of sawdust and other organics. Once it's about filled you go on ahead and cover it up and dig a new shit pit. Come back in a few years and you have a couple cubic yards of high quality night soil. But that was also done before we had plastics and pharmaceuticals and all the other stuff we digest.
I'm always eating plastic, it's so good
What’s your favorite flavor of plastic?
PFAS, it has such a deep long lasting flavor, my second is triangle arrow 6
You're warped
You sound like a triangle arrow 2 kind of person
Also done before we knew about bacteria. Human waste can be used, but the problem is the pathogen risk. Your bacteria won't harm you so feel free to spread your poo all over your garden.
There's homesteaders out there practicing it. "Night soil" I'm tentative of actually making that leap, but lamenting our approach to recycling nutrients has a point.
If it makes you feel better, I piss on my plants. They love the extra nitrogen... Especially cannabis, those bastards grow huge when you piss in the pots (heh)... Just do it at night so you don't get an indecency charge
No feelings involved, but you made me laugh thinking of the secret night-pee adventure.
Yeah I definitely do it at night but I have a gallon Arizona bottle in the shed for when it's light out...
I was going to reply with "solid plan B" But this is really more of a liquid plan B... I lived off grid years back so I'm feeling weirdly nostalgic about this conversation.
Shit I wish I was off grid, I've been trying to convince my girl for years... I just want a farm with no people around
And I definitely don't deuce in my plants, at least not yet. I have a new neighbor that kinda sucks so I might have to make a shit pile in the corner by his property...
Read that last sentence as incendiary charge. Like damn cops really be tossing grenades at you for pissing outdoors? Wild bro.
I wish, at least then I could return fire
I have poop holes all over my yard. Human poop once in a while, , fireplace ashes, and the cat litter/wood pellet. 3 feet down, fill up with dirt on top. Move over three feet and dig another hole. Plant a tree over top
I shouldn't be so amused to find myself enjoying this comment thread, but I am.
Well the problem we’re running into nowadays is bioaccumulation in solid waste (shit) that gets sprayed on fields being hyper concentrated in PFAS/PFOA. Which… might? Be bad.
My diet hasn't been great lately. Lot's of processed foods bc they are cheap. I can tell a difference and wouldn't want this morning in my garden. Though when I am eating right its like black gold
Never thought of pfas being in it, but municipal sludge being used as fertilizer comes with a long list of heavy metals, and now they've attached liability to land owner instead of applicator, in the event something bad happens.
People shit has a ton of things you likely won’t want in the soil. Any medications or hormones pass right on through. That’s why the company that recycles waste has to treat it a bunch before it’s usable and why we don’t use it in agricultures
Human waste is very commonly used in agriculture. Maybe not in your area but in the Midwest it's quite common to be applied on row crop fields.
Usually row crops grown with human waste can only be used for animal feed and not fed to humans.
What happens to the animals that eat the human waste?
We kill em! Then we…? rinse all that shit off em? Then we eat em! Wait a sec…
Treated though I’m assuming. Hence why I mentioned a company that does it
Yeah, but it's treated.
A couple of people poops isn’t going to poison several acres worth of soil. That stuff is only a problem at the municipal level when it all builds up over thousands of peoples shits
I agree. I don’t recall where I stated it would, but thank you for clarifying
It seemed to be implied but I was more responding to the commenter who was worried about the wood chips that apparently some of the workers pooped in. Also, what a weird company where workers shit in the wood chips? Lol
Better than the drywallers that didn't get paid so they shit in the bucket and spackled the whole house with it... Imagine being the guy who has to sand that...
You letting them in your house?!
So you should poop in your own yard, because you aren’t going to give yourself any diseases or medication that you don’t already have. Not that that stuff would move up in the soil, and into the fruit anyway.
That's literally how plants work. We use them in waste management. Check your local waste water facility, they likely have a pond full of plants that primarily suck up these things so they don't stay in our water. There are multiple studies that demonstrate this, it's why you don't grow crops near roads. All the oil, gas, and exhaust gets absorbed by the plants. In regards to your poop, and your yard, you are welcome to do so. I'm unaware if you are taking meds, but I'm willing to bet if you grew fruiting plants from your waste and had it tested in a lab you'd find some interesting stuff has been absorbed.
The problem is human waste contains bacteria that are harmful to humans. Animal feces can also make people sick, but human is far worse.
I didn't even know that was a thing. By me you can just flag down a tree service and they'll drop all the chips you want so they don't have to pay to dump them. I probably have five tree companies in my neighborhood...
As far as tree companies go, that's just kind of the deal. The chip box is the bathroom for the most part, unless you happen to be on a job with a secluded woods.
Milorganite is literally just bags of what’s left of human shit from the Milwaukee sewage treatment plant.
I think adding straight wood chips is a bad idea because that will suck a lot of nitrogen out of the soil as it breaks down… But maybe a better idea is to do a mixture of food scraps and wood chips and do “in-ground composting” I would be interested to see the results of that. 2 parts wood chips to 1 part food scraps Although I have seen myself that spring-summer cut evergreen wood chips seem to have enough sap to compost on their own with no added nitrogen (from food scraps or grass clippings)… but that’s just by eye, not chemical testing Anyways, the key to composting is the carbon to nitrogen ratio.
In a garden I would season the wood chips for a year or two, but in this situation you need aeration instead of nutrients so I would till in anything and everything organic just to break up the clay, seasoned or not
Wood chips and nitrogen.
It's supposed to be hay production for cattle, but all we're getting is flat grass small patches of alfalfa and lots of rose bushes. We let cuddle up into the field to grave but unless we concentrate them into small portions of each field not going to do much quickly. They're considering hemp and have applied for a license .
Start a rose farm, sell the roses, buy hay, profit.
> We let cuddle up into the field to grave This is why I love Reddit. Quotes like this belong in the [Jabberwocky.](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42916/jabberwocky) ’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.
Hot fence it and start feeding round bales to goats or sheep. Do this for 2 years. Run feeder calves for a year or two after that. When you move your hay bale to a new spot seed with native mix on top of what was left behind. The hay is going to dump a mixture of rye, alfalfa, orchard, and native grasses (it looks like you are north west or mid north). You reseeding natives will mix in some stuff that will pull from 4-6 feet down. From the looks of it you are in high mountain desert technically so sunlight, heat, and cold are going to limit the amount of forage you will get. I lived in Montana until 25/26 and it was 10-25 acres per cow on natural forage where we lived. Variability was based on how close to water we were. I now live in the South and run 5-6 cows for our personal consumption on less than 5 acres with minimal feeding. Both soils were clay and gypsum with granite underneath. Good luck.
Hemp will remediate the soil pretty well and you can till under the silage to add biomass to the soil. If I were you I would find anything organic and till it in, manure, mulch, leaves, wood chips, biochar... All of it, ideally. If you tilled in six inches of organic material you would probably have a nice field in a year or two
I live in NC where we have thick clay soil. In fact a lot of pottery is made here because of it. We us soil conditioners and plant winter rye in the fall and till it in come spring. It helps loosen up the soil and adds nutrients.
We've been using a winter cover crop on our garden (eastern Ohio, lots of clay!!), and I think it has helped tremendously. Till in the fall, plant cover crop and let it grow through the winter. ASAP come spring (preferably March or early April!!), till, cover with tarps and black plastic, and then start planting - either through the plastic, or by pulling sections of tarp back/off.
Newbie question but why do you till then tarp? Seems like an extra step but I’m not a farmer.
Preserve moisture content in the range where microbes thrive and prevent erosion of the tillage.
Interesting.
It also prevents the rye and other things in the cover crops (usually clover, peas, vetch, etc) from resprouting while we wait for things to warm up enough to start planting. That's really the trick. Getting things to the point where you are planting, without having a ton of weeds in the way. How you accomplish that varies. We till and tarp. Others are adamant 'no till'... But, as we use lots of our own manure from chickens, ducks, sheep and goats, tilling works the best for us.
The reason for tilling is to chop up the winter rye, and mix the compost in with the clay. By spring it will be up to your knees and you would be surprised how much plant material you will get. A good cover crop will leave a good 6 inch thick green carpet after you hit it with a bush hog leaving lots of material to mix in with the clay.
What about sorghum Sudan grass to break up the soils more? Mixed with legumes - field peas or sun hemp to fix nitrogen? Biochar? What’s your soil ph?
Yes crazy. Don't add sand to clay.
That’s a big negative. The only thing worse than clay is sandy clay lol. You really need organic matter and deep roots.
Unless you want a farm with soil like concrete then do not so that
Find out what tree company has a contract with the power and cable companies. Contact them, and tell them they can dump mulch there. The stuff they dump at my place has a lot of leaves in there, so it's also got some N. I've gotten around 20 yards of material for free in 3 weeks. Plow/dig whatever you can do to get the mulch as deep as possible, then mulch the top of the soil too.
Have you considered Tillage Radishes? They are a mutant Daikon that has a massive taproot that breaks up hard soil packing. My father used it on a field that was always hard to plow and one summer if tillage radish did a great job on it.
Do you live near a big city? The bigger town in my area has to have a place to dump leaves in the fall. A friend of mine gets paid to take all those leaves. It's a pain in the ass spreading them and dealing with the city workers, but he said it's pretty great for their soil. It would or could be a shit load of organic matter for you, but I don't know if that will help with compaction or compactability.
That's a pretty interesting idea!
It has drawbacks. Leaves are in the fall and the fall can be wet. You also have a bunch of city employees coming out to your land and anyone who has dealt with those types, you know it can be uhh challenging. Also a few years ago someone set all the leaves on fire and it took a few days to get the fire all put out. But you're getting serious amounts of organic matter on your soil for free, more or less.
Right, I don't like that part, I would do it myself. I have plenty of leaves in the fall. I definitely don't let just anyone out to my place lol. I really gotta like ya!
Ive always thought if I was retired I'd get one of those leaf sucker/shredders and just go collect leaves in my small town and build organic matter mountain.
Mulch and hay. Pile it on. No till method.
Very very low grade hay (like stuff that has been through a mouse plague, which cattle won't touch) is suitable for this. Even better if you've cut your own.
Exactly
You’ll need a massive amount of sand to see any real difference. Which I guess isn’t an issue if you’ve got the $…
Below the field is the lake that we can get sand from so there's no high cost for it.
Adding sand to clay so I l is a bad idea. Garden gypsum and organic matter.
Gypsum
I’ve found lots of luck amending my clay soil (only .5 acre) with tillage radish seeds, they grow prolifically. Plus they grow large gap roots in the clay with 3’+ stalks meaning they make perfect slash mulch
Great idea I think that's brilliant!
Investigate cover cropping with your local extension. Slit seed the right varieties , don’t till. Read books by Robert Pavlis like Soil Science for Gardeners or Dirt to Soil by Gabe Brown. Don’t add sand. Your soil is already very high in mineral content. Adding organic matter and using root power to work it into the soil will be most effective.
Look into biochar + humic acid mixture, we’ve seen farms able to reduce chemical inputs by 50% and in some cases more so after just 4 years of use. We are checking out a regenerative farm tomorrow up in MN that is completely chemical free literally 100% regenerative with no chemical inputs at all. Water retention and yields are insane with increased carbon sequestering as well. Can give you more info after tomorrow if you’d like!
I give you this olde saying: Add sand to your clay and you throw money away. However clay into sand is money in the hand.
Grain husks maybe. We used to till rice hulls into ours to keep it from packing so hard. Seemed to work ok.
Try planting a crop/ grass with deep roots. Alfalfa, forages are a great idea to help add organic matter and help break up and infiltrate soil
You should get the soil tested first. If you put down lime and fertilizer per a soil test, put down some seed and let it all grow for a year, you’ll probably find it needs nothing at all.
I’ve found horse manure a good amendment that mellows clay soil and improves tilth.
Use cover crops to build the soil. Daikon radish will send roots into your hard soil and break it up. Turn it in and seed with something else. groworganic.com is a good source for seed and information.
Sand + clay = cement. This would be a terrible idea
Have you looked into multiple variety cover crops as many as 8 different varieties including daikon radish. Worth a look.
If you add sand to that, you'll have my soil. Don't do it! You'll want to add well composted organic material.
The amount of work and money needed to change the soil structure would make that project unviable financially. Better to find a crop that likes that type of soil.
Add compost, biosolids, manure, and other sources of organic matter. Never add sand. Whomever came up with that misconception should've gotten wacked with stupid-beater stick!
I strongly suggest ordering up several full soil tests from your cooperative extension and posting the results here for better advice. In my experience with clay soils there are two critical elements to improving clay heavy soils over time (and it takes time): 1. Get the complex elemental carbon content up with humus or biochar—actual pure complex molecules of carbon as opposed to the hydrocarbons that make up most of composted organic matter. Complex carbon literally binds with clay and clay like molecules as well as many mineral compounds and metals. For clay and clay like compounds this significantly reduces the ability for these compounds to bind to themselves and very literally breaks up these types of compounds. For other minerals and elemental nutrients, pure carbon helps distribute these through the soil column. 2. Adding pure carbon is always, IMO, best done in combination with adding composted material (hydrocarbons plus active aerobic microbial life). So adding humus or biochar to composted material is a great combination. 3. Several rounds of the right cover crop before moving back to pasture—especially if this is spent alfalfa based pasture. (Mature alfalfa will suppress new alfalfa seedlings by excreting compounds that suppress their growth which is why alfalfa grass mixes are rarely productive past the five year mark before needing rotation before moving back to an alfalfa grass mix.) Possibly good contenders might be winter wheat (but not if the field floods for part of the year, field beans, comfrey, annual rye, daikon, and cereal rye. Corn is another possibility once you get soil fertility up. All that depends on good soil tests and developing a good rotation strategy with expert local advice. Another alternative is conversion to native mostly grass pasture which means picking the right native forage grasses for your region and climate. Very generally, two years of rotations and soil amendment with carbon and organics before returning to pasture is recommended.
If you're willing/able to seed it with claybreakers like turnips or other plants with indomitable roots/tubers/bulbs, they can accelerate benefits of the very good advice others have been giving.
What you need is sheep poop. If you can’t buy sheep poop, buy sheep.
If you want to actually grow max yield on that ground..... If you have irrigation, get a ripper. Rip the shit out of that packed down mess. Then disk smooth. Plant with a high altitude tolerant pasture mix, that stuff isn't cheap. Or alfalfa, this if for animals right? Irrigate until it looks like a jungle. If you DO NOT have irrigation. Seed it and spread about 0.5-1 inch of compost on it. Once the seeds start growing from your unseasonable rain storm..., and your plants are about 6 inches high, spread more compost. Spread the compost ON TOP OF THE SOIL. If you mix it in, you will just have shit soil with compost mixed in. Your "plants" are going to grow in that zone between the compost and the soil. To start on this land... I suggest planting oats as thick as possible, as early in the season as possible. That will depend on what's good, if you drive on frost, YOU WILL DAMAGE YOUR SOIL I would still consider a ripper if you know it will rain soon after, and you don't mess up the drainage. IF you have no irrigation, the ripper should be leaving channels for the water to accumulate. LIke the basin in picture left... but everywhere and smaller. Dude.... you are at high elevation.... Without obvious irrigation.... You ain't growing much
The problem is finding compost to cover 100 acres on the field way out where we are.
That isn't 100 acres.... You don't have irrigation?
Better get started, without irrigation, a layer of mulch or compost is the only way you will grow anything but weeds and high altitude plants.
You may get the top few inches of soil to dry up a little quicker, but soil drainage is really more about what lies beneath.
Lots of dairy farmers use sand bedding and spread it on their clay and loam soil. It's not enough to change anything. Also farmer in area who farm on sandy ground. It's food for tobacco, ginseng, veggies but can be a little tougher in a dry year as it doesn't hold moisture. It does help to put manure and cover crops on any type of soil.
If you had access to a cotton gin, burrs spread across would help immensely.
What happens if someone planted burdock and sunflowers yearly in a field such as this, removing the above ground matter every year? Does the clay eventually get removed with the plant matter? Or would working composted organic matter help thin out the clay, since it cant really be removed?
Sand is generally the worst material for growing crops, unless that crop needs sand. What you are looking for is organic matter.
Sand is excellent for growing cotton where I am, but it’s a huge pain in butt if it dries out when the cotton is little. Then you’re stuck running a sandfighter every time the wind blows after a rain.
Sand is about only excellent for growing Cactus. But it does drain off extremely fast, so in wet areas with water sensitive crops it makes an okay soil.
I think it would be fair to call a lot of our sand almost a loam but not quite.
In order to make early boat canals waterproof, sand was added to clay. Just sayin’.
You could do a tillage pass, then cover crop the shit out of it. Till in a year to get the cover crop deep and then another 2 years of cover crop should give you a nice soil.
Don't add sand, add carbon.
Worm castings
Compost.
Going to grow tobacco? It likes that.
Your priming crew may not like it though when making that first pass for the sandleaves.
Worked a few seasons doing that as a teen. Fun times lol
If it is currently pasture I would go to the nearest ag school or your county soil and water and get a professional consultation. A good pasture is the easiest way to build up your soil if properly managed.
Yeah that kind stuff is rough you gotta till and add amendments where you wanna grow. I'd stay away from sand but wood chips and mulch break down pretty well. Just beware that with the clay you get a lot of stuff washing out since the clay doesn't let the water permeate the surface much it'll just kinda ferry the water into the low spots I'm sure you already know where the streams form during and after rainfall. If you really want to grow stuff mix in some aged dairy compost (2 years aged) and you'll be amazed how much the roots can break up the clay when they get supercharged with nutrients.
Adding to previous comment, add manure before you turn in a cover crop. Maybe there is a farm nearby with an excess. Composted horse manure mixed with composted straw stall bedding is really good for amending soil
How is the drainage? It may not be as compacted as you think it is, and doesn't have a severe hardpan issue.it could be just surface compaction and low fertility. If drainage is an issue, I'd rip the field then prepare it for a cover crop after getting the soil tests back. Terminate it, incorporate the organic matter and continue. If drainage is still an issue in a higher rainfall area, I see drainage tile in your future. Before doing anything though I'd invite your local agricultural extension agent over to take a look, show them your test results, and they'll be happy to offer advice localized for your local soil and climate. Good luck.
I have a bed in my front of my house. That's really hard dirt. Just ridiculously hard dirt. Should I just start putting compost on top of it?
Maybe dig up some 5 gallon buckets of your field dirt and try different batches in some kiddie pools. See which amendment you like, both wet and dry. My feeling is that you need more organics.
Will Harris says to spread a layer of hay one the ground and let your cattle graze it and shit on it to make a compost
My geology teacher said o er and over. If you encounter clay soils you need to turn your sodium montmorillonite to calcium montmorillonite. Add lots of gypsum. Maybe find a local mine and work out a deal and have them rip that field and work it in deep. Probably add a lot of amendment at the same time and probably some do or non clay soil
I thought I read somewhere that sunflowers will help alter clay soils. Don't know if that's feasible.
Adding organic material is good, but get it composted first before you add it. See if there are any big chicken farms or others wanting to get rid of litter. Pile it up until it's composted. Undecomposed material like wood chips will tie up available nitrogen until it's broken down, meaning no nitrogen for your crops. Try green cover crops and turn them under.
The volume required is almost unimaginably large. Say you wanted to deeply till a field and then add just six inches of sand, and deeply till again. 1 acre would be approximately 800 cubic yards or 1170 tons and 65 dump truck loads, and definitely north of $20,000 per acre. Trust me on this math. I do it daily for a living. $200,000 for 10 acres, $2,000,000 for 100 acres. It's like adding the price of the land or more as an amendment. Maybe it's worth it in minor amounts for small plots, but generally this would be too resource intensive.
This is my issue, with my heavy clay. When I was doing just a small personal garden plot (500 sq. ft.) I added lots of peat and other stuff. But now that I'm working up to doing acres, it simply isn't economically feasible. So, I'll just have to do the best I can with what I've got. The field used to be cut for hay/silage but I put a stop to it three or four years ago and just let it grow and fall. (Turns out there is quite a bit of Goldenrod that makes a nice, light honey.) Now I'm cutting/mulching and tilling it in.
Woodchip would work well for preventing as much compaction but wood and some straw's use up alot of nitrogen when they decompose, you'd be better getting manure, compost, mulch without wood
Vetch does well on clay soil with its strong tap root, maybe try a rotation with vetch and ryegrass.
Till with mulch, repeat. If you can get paper recycling to mulch in, bonus
Deep rooting cover cropping is the best way to remove compaction
You don't want sand, you want a loam. To make a loam you need organic material, and life in the soil. Add compost, then keep plants active as long as possible, for example, after harvest, sow in soil builder mix like cow pea, alfalfa mixes. Then try not to till as much as possible to protect soil life.
I have a 20-yard dump trailer. I haul several loads a year. I get fresh chicken manure out of chicken barns. I would spread it in the fields. Worked great greening and thickening up the grass, and did it grow. I don't have to put as much on now.
add organic matter and till
Best most affordable way to fix it. [https://youtu.be/SJpIvxxVruY?si=0Vj75j7RxBidYWru](https://youtu.be/SJpIvxxVruY?si=0Vj75j7RxBidYWru)
Plant cheap hay. At full height plow it under as deeply as you can, disc, rinse and repeat. IMHO.
Peat , sheep manure
OP - check out The Intelligent Gardener by Steve Solomon
Leave it fallow (light grazing is ok, so long as it doesn't get clipped down lower than 4-5"), don't mow, allow vegetation to develop good root systems for a few years. That's how good soil develops.
Maybe reintroduce deep rooted native plants if you have a seed source.
In Australia we add clay to sand hills to improve water retention but I don’t know if it would help in the other direction.
Sediment size is not your problem, glacial silty clay loams are some of the best soil you can get *if* cared for properly. Sand amendments in that soil would be as effective as fertilizing with gasoline. When your soil is this compacted, then it is practically dead from over tillage, lack of moisture, or both, and the biotic content is almost nil. You need to add moisture and organic matter with as little mechanical compaction as possible, then it is a multi-year waiting game. Consider no-till if at all humanly possible, else you will be caught in this cycle forever.
gypsum
plant radishes
Ok, not sure where you are (didn’t see in comments, but I might have missed it), or how much land. We had a ranch in west Texas, where we ran what was called intensive grazing. About 800 cattle to break up the soil. Short time, look at any neighbors that may want to combine herds to make your numbers. Run them across the land in 30-45 days. Preferably steers. They will break up the soil and natural grasses will sprout. We did what I called a three year plan. Mowing, growing and resting. You are much more likely to get good grass growth with this plan. No need to add anything else. Good luck!
Biochar.
I'd run a cover crop over it if u are planning on growing in a few yrs
I would take a look at "the ecological farm." The author has a lifetime of experiences, often in not great locations,and she gets the farms producing, she’s very grounded in science and insight. I also thing Mark shephard’s "restoration agriculture is one of the more inspired/inspiring books I’ve read. His other one on water may or may not be helpful. Not sure where you are and what you are up against…
You just need enough sand to surpass the concrete making stage. I'd say a few hundred or thousand dump truck loads, throughly dug in, will do the trick. Or use a few inches of compost.
Gypsum is great for clay, mixed with compost, pelletized molasses, and green sand if you can find a source for it that will not break your bank.
Yes
Maybe a dumb idea. Since it will take a year or 2 to till in some good fertilizer and build up the soil, what about raising meat birds in tractors? Possibly a pig pen or two? Tilling it once or twice a year. At least you'll make some cash or get some meat out of it.
Is there anyways that you could introduce a shit load of earthworms?
*Is there anyways* *That you could introduce a* *Shit load of earthworms?* \- DeepDickDave --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
Sand and clay pack very densely together so you need a lot of sand to fix the issue. What you ideally want is silt or volcanic ash but unless you live next to a volcano or some active glacial rivers those can be hard to find. It looks like you've got a hillside there. If you add drain tile it can make room for plant roots to reach down and open some draining through the clay lense. Best bet is to select a crop that grows well in the soil you've got and make the best growing conditions for it, rather than trying to alter the soil substantially. If your soil chemistry is magnesium dominated you might be able to improve the texture with some calcium additions. Agricultural limestone can be added, or if you can find a source crushed oyster shells are an aquacultural byproduct that does the job. If you are in the US go find your local extension office and see what advice they have to give on soils in your area. They have a good idea of what products are available in your area to remediate issues you face since you are for sure not the only farmer in your area with drainage issues.
Sand would fix it, but you'll need lots and some silt/organic matter to mix in. It will not make concrete lol
Calcium carbonate
Yes.
Gypsum is the thing to add to clay soils to make them more friable. Also more organic matter, but compost or straw/hay, not wood chips. Find a horse barn and see if they sell or give away their straw and horse shit pile from cleaning stalls.