SPECIAL FEATURES:
Email
'No-till farming' revolution grows in Indiana
Advocates of the technique say it could provide the low-cost, environmentally-friendly crops the agricultural industry has sought for years.
Tue, Apr 17 2012 at 9:36 AM
Related Topics:
NO-TILL: The biggest departure from traditional farming involves the plowing, also known as tilling. Plowing aerates the soil, eliminates weeds and helps with nutrient recovery.However, plowing also erodes the soil and kills part of the organic life that
Indiana farmer Mike Starkey does not plow his fields and uses fertilizer only sparingly, but he is on the cutting edge of a growing trend in American agriculture.
Advocates of his "no-till farming" technique say it could provide the low-cost, environmentally-friendly crops the agricultural industry has sought for many years.
Starkey's cropland looks like a tangle of corn stalks, crimson clover and ryegrass, far different from the impeccably-plowed fields of most farms.
"Over a period of 12 years, we're now 100 percent no-till," said the corn and soybean farmer, who also is a supervisor with the Hendricks County Soil and Water Conservation District.
The biggest departure from traditional farming involves the plowing, also known as tilling. Plowing aerates the soil, eliminates weeds and helps with nutrient recovery.However, plowing also erodes the soil and kills part of the organic life that grows in it.
No-till farming helps to rebuild the "nutrient capital" of farmland that now is dependent on fertilizers, Starkey said.
The technique, also known as "conservation farming," started about 20 years ago by following the "three pillars" of the method: cover crops, no-till and crop rotation.
Cover crops refer to plants like clover, ryegrass and alfalfa that form a carpet to protect the soil from erosion while also trapping nitrogen from the air and storing it in nodules on the roots of plants to fertilize the ground.
In April, just before the sowing of seeds, weedkiller is sprayed on the cropland.
"When we actually kill these legume plants, these nodules then become an organic source of nitrogen that breaks down much more slowly than commercial fertilizer," said Barry Fisher, a no-till farming expert for the U.S. Agriculture Department's National Resources Conservation Service.
"That's a time release form of nitrogen... that will spoon feed the nitrogen to the corn crop coming here," Fisher said.
Cover crops maximize the use of the soil's natural fertilizers, which can be a better alternative than manufactured fertilizers sinking into groundwater after heavy rain, he said.
Direct seeding for cash crops requires special tractors that dig narrow furrows, inject the seeds and close the hole in one motion, without scarring the land.
No-till crops like corn and soybeans feed off the rich nutrients in decomposing plants from the previous season and from cover crops.
"Conservation tillage systems, with today's planting equipment, with today's technologies... have been yielding consistently the same" as traditional farming, said Tony Vyn, professor of agronomy at Purdue University, where the technique has been studied since 1975.
About 35 percent of US crops are grown with no-till farming, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department. For soybeans, about half the crops are raised with no-till techniques.
The federal government is encouraging no-till farming by providing subsidies for cover crop seeds and the special equipment they require, which can run up to 50 percent of the cost.
Copyright 2012 AFP Global Edition
You might also like:
Sign in with one of these accounts to add your comment.
EDITORS' PICKS
Advertisement
TODAY'S MOST POPULAR ON
- 15 famous people who mysteriously disappeared
- Stone Age people may have battled against a zombie apocalypse
- 9 habits that may do more harm than good
- 10 false facts most people think are true
- A day in the life of the human hand
- Tattoos for the edgy environmentalist
- How to bike to work (or anywhere else)
- Best air-filtering houseplants, according to NASA
- 15 houseplants to improve indoor air quality
- Jon Stewart explains the ‘Monsanto Protection Act’
From our sponsor
NEWSLETTER
Advertisement
What happens to the Herbicide that is spread onto the cover crop and is still on the soil surface. Thats the part I wonder. Also my farmer uses Roundup ready Beans or Round up ready corn and then sprays another batch of roundup on the crop when it gets about a foot high.
No till farming of this sort is completely dependent on poisons. The real cutting edge no till practices are organic no till which is being done by many organic farmers and researched by the rodale institute. Why is no till becoming a big thing in industrial farming? Because it's very profitable for the chemical companies!
cool until the herbicide. they need a better way to weaken the cover crop , fukuoka did this with flooding, as is normal in japan.
Hmmm, sounded good until I read the part about the massive application of herbicides to kill the cover crop. I bet Monsanto loves no-till farming.
My Dad was a Hoosier so I'm impressed when Indiana makes the news. Any good farmer is a hero in my book. They feed the world.