There is a lot going on behind the scenes relating to these issues. As an example, I am part of a Washington State Department of Ecology advisory committee being used mostly as a sounding board for staff's evaluation of NRCS best management practices. The result of this is expected to be a manual for farmers to voluntarily use to reduce pollution of state waters. I see nothing good coming out of this for farmers or the environment unless it results in a massive education push to educate farmers on the value of improving soil health. Erosion from farm land is much too complicated to be resolved with a cookie cutter manual. Over the years I have discovered that farmers generally follow tradition more than science and change is verrrrrry sloooooow. Many farm operations are the same as in the day of their grandfathers except the equipment is newer, larger and faster.
So, why should farmers no-till? The simple answer is, --WE HAVE TO! Survival in the coming political climate will depend on it. No-till is not the answer in itself, but it is the base on which to build. Minimizing soil disturbance allows for management decisions that will build soil structure, build soil surface armor, build soil organic matter, build soil biology, and minimize soil displacement. Continued use of cultivation in our Palouse environment can not accomplish these needed changes. These are all critical to improving soil health and reducing environmental degradation derived from farm operations. No-till also holds potential for sinking carbon which is beneficial to the soil and atmosphere. Our soils are carbon deficient, and carbon is a driving force in the plant kingdom. No-tilling is a WIN-WIN proposition. The trick is learning to manage the no-till system to reap the benefits and avoid the pitfalls.
Minimizing soil disturbance through no-till allows management decisions that will reduce erosion too zero or near zero. As we gain a better understanding of soil biology we will control weed species and insect predation with less chemistry. As our understanding increases about how fungal networks transports information, nutrients, and water throughout the plant community, and how soil microbes extract nutrients and make them available to plants from organic matter, dirt and rocks, we will be able to manage our crops using ever lessening synthetic inputs. The more minimal the soil disturbance the better the environment for these natural processes to develop.
Many issues surrounding SOIL HEALTH are not well understood, but there is intense research going on by private and public institutions, and farmer experimentation since around 2000. I read/listen/look at a lot of material and find myself discounting information that is more than 3-5 years old. One researcher told me that if your education in soil biology was prior to 1985 it was mostly wrong. I'm long in the tooth, but find it exciting to be part of the process. The way things are progressing, I think I will be able to experience some of the fruits associated with improved soil health before I fade away. In fact, I'm already seeing some of this happening through farm test plots but it's going to be a while before the processes are understood well enough to apply field wide. Five years ago, if someone would have asked me when we would start seeing some positive results from improved soil health I would have said, maybe my children or grandchildren.
Although everyone is entitled to an opinion, yours seems a little to far over the balance point on the scale that I would like to debate. Complete No till farming is by no means the golden ticket in the Palouse to a profitable or 'sustainable' farming operation. Now don't get me wrong, we don't need the days of talcum power summer fallow anywhere, but It all goes back to the scale I refered to and finding a "balance" of reduced tillage and not over working the soil. Nothing irritates me more than people preaching if you till the soil you will loose yield. Really? The fact is the highest yielding producer of wheat in the country obtained this feat following a crop of potatoes. In case people reading this are not aware, preperation of a field for potatoes includedes fumigation of the soil, killing all soil organisms, and then pulverizing the soil structure during preperation and harvesting of the potatoes. So how did Phillip Gross obtain 200 bpa of wheat following this degradation to the soil? Water from irrigation and the right ammount nutrients to obtain that yield goal (the basic needs of growing plants). You need to look at the midwest and the struggles farmers are having with super resistant weeds due to the sole use of chemical control. They are ten to twelve years ahead of us on this matter, with many going back to some tillage as the only means left. I see this already happening here with species of russian thistle, mayweed and prickley lettuce getting harder to control whith chemical application. It is a matter of time and we will be in the same boat they are. After all, I find it a hypocrisy of society and their phobia of chemicals in farming, but no till justifing the use of MORE chemical with this type of farming practice! I was asked by a director of the local Conservation District in Spokane a few years back what it would take to get me to switch to 100% no till, my answer was a guarentee of no reduction of my net profit from my ten year average with the option of a buyback of equipment given up plus 10% if my yields or net profit did not improve or was less. After sharing my 5 yr. APH on our operation that includes tillage, he was quick to want to exit our conversation. My point of all of this is certin practices work in certin areas. Erosion has been reduced tenfold in the Palouse in the last twenty years alone. Bushels per acre are what pays the bills, and when somethig is not broken, you don't go give it a complete overhaul, you just tweek it here and there. I am proud to be a balanced 'yes tiller' and will continue to call out the one's trying to convince the public complete no till is the only way farms need to be to survive. Without excess payments from ecology (thank you John Q taxpayer) most of these all no till operations would be bankrupt.
ReplyDeleteSince I rarely go to the "comments" screen I am replying belatedly. I found this "comment" worth responding too.
ReplyDeleteThe statement associated to "what it would take for "Anonymous" to switch to 100% no-till" says a lot about mindset. I see a lot of that thinking as I look across the Palouse landscape. Short term economics mostly dictates producers actions rather than longterm resource sustainability. Successful no-tilling requires a change in mindset. We have spent over a 100 years honing the skills of raising wheat with a cultivation based system and it is still a viable system from which to continue making improvements in yield. This system; however, by it's very nature, is going to require ever increasing input costs as the natural productivity of our soils decrease through effects resulting mostly from tillage, and the increasing cost of those synthetic inputs. If you are in denial that our soil is being degraded, that yield can be maintained/improved without ever-increasing synthetic inputs, that future severe weather events will not devastate the farm, that government environmental and product regulations will not hamper your farming practices, then go ahead and "till" to your hearts content. For those that do have these concerns, I think the points made in the original post are valid!