I would also be interested to hear about this.
We are clearing a monocrop pine copse for a new orchard. This is reclaimed Maine pasture land, meaning on top of the fact that it was a pine forest, the soil is naturally acidic. The topsoil is extremely thin, and as Will Bonsall (who lives a couple of towns away) describes it, digging in this region is really an exercise in quarrying — a 10-lb stone here, a foot away, a 20-lb stone, and so on. The drainage in this spot is pretty good but it is flanked on one side by a brook and on the other by a wet area that floods in the spring and in the rest of the year is covered by ferns and mixed deciduous/conifers. So the water table is high but I think we're OK in the area where the pines are now coming down. The pines had excluded all light so the floor is mostly bare, covered with pine needles and a little grass and moss here and there. In general we have both patches of clay and areas of sandy loam and they tend to be pretty close to each other, in a patchwork. Right now we're cutting down the pines and the immediate plan is to rake up the pine needles and if there's time, lay down some red clover for overwintering. We don't plan to have heavy equipment come in to pull out the pine roots.
In the spring, we plan to lay down deciduous wood ashes to neutralize the pH. Now, we could lay down a combination of red clover and oilseed radish, which would help the drainage and give us some cover. But frankly, we need to build soil. I have read that oats/field peas/vetch builds the soil fastest and frankly right now I don't know if the existing soil has the fertility to support that. I have thought of using alsike clover to get some greenery established. There is also the option of laying down areas of ramial mulch here and there and building the tilth gradually as that decomposes. So these are various options, and I wonder if anyone else has some good ideas.
Shelah Horvitz
Savage Cider Orchards
Zone 4b
Weld, ME
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/20/2015 04:44PM by Shelah Horvitz.