Thanks Jim, My intentions are that my son and I will plant the trees. I plan to rent a dingo with a large auger. These are small peach trees, so they won't need much of a hole, but I don't want to try it by hand. I've thought of doing some soil testing. The biggest issue with our soil and climate around here is getting peach trees up out of the ground (i.e. terraced). If that's done peaches grow like weeds, if it's not done, they die. I did a couple soil tests on the soil here and it was very low in P. However, the farm property has been used for cattle pasture for years, and so should have plenty of P (probably too much). Zinc was also low here, but I typically spray Ziram for early scab control which also provides zinc through foliar absorption (peach trees are heavy feeders of zinc). My general problem is that peach trees have been too vigorous here, so I wouldn't mind if the soil was a little less fertile at the farm (but it probably won't be). The soil profile looks very similar on both sites (20" of top soil followed by clay for as far as you want to dig). I plan to mulch the trees out there with wood chips and run a dry orchard, as I do here. "are you doing this on your own or are you getting technical assistance from a university or crop specialist?" I'm not quite doing it on my own. I've been touring orchards in the area for many years (partly with the Kansas Fruit Growers Assoc.) so compared to other orchards I don't think there are many surprises. There is a good fruit specialist in Missouri I've met and may see if I can get him to come out. My wife and I looked for land for a while and no site is perfect. This ones not either. The biggest issue is air drainage. The part of the land I intend to plant does flatten out in a low spot, but the low spot extends for over a mile, so I'm hoping the flat area is large enough to accommodate cold air drainage. Part of the property is on a southward facing slope, but I don't intend to plant on that (at least not right away). I wish the property didn't have the air drainage concern but trying to find a property easily accessible to the public, zoned rural, doesn't flood, at a reasonable price is pretty difficult. My biggest question was row spacing, since I don't have any experience running large equipment down rows. I emailed a few commercial peach growers and basically got back similar answers. Namely, it's personal preference. Jerry Frecon (fruit specialist from Rutgers) sent back the most humorous response - "I could take you to orchards with 16' row spacing and when they are heavily laden with fruit you can hardly walk down the rows. I see the growers drive his equipment through these blocks and break limbs, knock off and bruise fruit but he does not worry about it because he says he is picking up to 1200 bushels per acre at this close spacing and high vigor." I've pretty much settled on 25'rows which is a bit more space than growers around here allow. I plan to allow 30' at the ends to turn equipment. There is a very good resource here, http://www.clemson.edu/extension/peach/commercial/index.html called the "Southeastern Peach Growers Handbook". It is obviously written for peach growers in the Southeast, but the Midwest doesn't have anything nearly that extensive, and a lot of the information crosses over.

There is a more proper way to lasagna compost as I understand it, which includes making it a foot high, and leaving it to decompose for a season. This I'm sure is awesome but I've never done that. I've simply cut the grass low, covered the appropriate section with about 3 to 6 thicknesses of newspaper. Wet it down, and then make sure you cover it well (the newspaper is not pretty if not covered with mulch). Then I dig holes through this. Since it's pretty much unamended clay I make a good sized hole and will put manure, mushroom compost, whatever, and mix with the clay--this helps the plant. I don't put too many amendments for shrubs because I've read that creates a bowl effect and is not a great idea. Improving this Ga. soil is an ongoing effort and so every year I add some of my homemade (somewhat chunky!) compost or bought manure all over and cover with mulch (county and/or storebought). This all has succeeded in improving the flower beds quite a bit in just about 2.5 years but it's not by any means like "Victory Gardens" dirt yet, where you could stick your hand in up to your elbow! But it supports the plants pretty well and clay has a lot of nutrients in it, we don't want to supplant it, simply amend it. Hope this helps. Thanks, Rose

Yep, GMO sugar beets are being cultivated in the US. Their approval was revoked in 2010 but that has since been overturned in 2012. Via wikipedia: "On August 13, 2010, Judge White revoked the deregulation of glyphosate-resistant sugar beets and declared it unlawful for growers to plant glyphosate-resistant sugar beets in the spring of 2011. As a result of this ruling, growers were permitted to harvest and process their crop at the end of the 2010 growing season, yet a ban on new plantings was enacted...On February 4, 2011, the USDA-APHIS announced glyphosate-resistant sugar beets had been partially deregulated and growers would be allowed to plant seed from spring 2011 until an EIS (environmental impact statement) is completed...In July 2012, after completing an environmental impact assessment and a plant pest risk assessment the USDA deregulated Monsanto's Roundup Ready sugar beets." Jill- At the risk of taking this thread further off topic, if you're wanting to grow grains I suggest reading Small-Scale Grain Raising by Gene Logsdon. It's a very interesting book. I could hardly put it down even though I haven't got the space to grow grains. Rodney Here is a link that might be useful: Sugar Beet- Genetic Modification

Gylphosate (Roundup) kills everything. There are also selective herbicides that kill weeds but not grass. Read the label to see how long you have to wait before seeding. There is no point in putting weed killer on bare soil. The chemicals disrupt the life cycle of the plant. If there is no plant, they don't do anything. Maybe you're thinking of pre-emergents. Pre-emergents are put on the soil and disrupt seeds as they try to germinate. Except for a couple of exceptions, they also prevent grass seed from germinating. Mesotrione is a pre-emergent that allows most grass seeds to germinate (read the label to see which ones) while preventing weed seeds from germinating. Scott's has a starter fertilizer with it and you can also buy it separately as Tenacity. I don't understand why you want to replace the soil. Any soil you use will have weed seeds. Such a massive disruption as you propose will endanger the soil life. It's best not to disturb the soil any more than necessary.