"or shall it remain a mystery?"

lol yea pretty much! :)

Ah, David, now you can intelligently discusss the article and not simply repeat old arguments about something that is not in the discussion. I gather that there are some people here that are against learning anything new.

Wait, what about davids question? Hmm speeking of against learning anything new?

There is at least one person here incapable of expressing any ideas or opinions of their own other than one tired refrain.

"Posted by TheMasterGardener1 5B (My Page) on Fri, Nov 23, 12 at 11:23

Wait, what about davids question? Hmm speeking of against learning anything new? "

I said this because it was odd you did not adress their question. I was interested in hearing more.

It's quite obviously impossible to have a sustainable controlled food-production system without any soil disturbance. Sooner or later undesired plants will dominate and the food-production will drop to little or none. Even in the so-called "food forest" undesired plants must be uprooted from time to time and that is soil disturbance.

To speak of "no till" when it comes to annual crop production is a contradiction. Tillage, or soil disturbance, can be reduced, but it cannot be eliminated without eventually eliminating the crops.

True, Pat. The no till soybeans are planted in a narrow strip that is cut and kind of "tilled". The ammonia in cases of corn side dressing gets injected about 5 inches deep in a rip cut. between rows.

"According to Moyer, the carbon equation changes dramatically for organic agriculture. "In organic systems, just the opposite appears to be the case; carbon is sequestered at greater depths in no-till systems than tilled systems. The extended root production, along with the increased soil macro- and microbiological life, sequesters the carbon deeper in the soil."

"There is no doubt that healthy, well-structured soil supports robust plants and abundant harvests. Untilled soil supports numerous worm holes, ant nests, and other subterranean tunnels that increase water penetration. Soil aggregates clumps of soil particles held together with organic matter also tend to be larger and more abundant in untilled soil, which improves the water-retention capability of the soil. Finally, untilled soil tends to have a healthier population of plant-supporting soil organisms than tilled soil."

The article gives us numbers / results, not technique. What does it matter what the soil base is.

Eric

No-till.
Well now one would think something that uses no-till is a pasture.
Read this page.

http://www.soilandhealth.org/01aglibrary/010125yeomans/010125ch5.html

I just found out that most of the corn grown in the usa is grown using no-till!! Over 70% of the crops grown in Argentina are grown with no-till!!

On my home plots (raised beds) I usually just lasagna compost, etc.

Oh, every few years I might take a spade to them and turn the soil over to get rid of adjacent tree roots moving into the beds.

But answer me this please: In large farm operations, if heavy equipment is used to plant and harvest crops, etc.., doesn't tilling help to counteract compaction?

(You gotta get rid of the hardpan layer but there are chisel disks that can be used to do this.)

What passes for "no till" on many farms today means you run a disc over the field to incorporate the stubble into the soil instead of plows. There is still the use of large amounts of carbon based fuels as well as the release of large amounts of CO2 from the soil with that "no till" method.
Tilling often creates problems such as hardpan, only it would be called plow pan instead. Chisel plows are often used to "break up" that hardpan and are often an implement rented by the local soil conservation district since the cost of purchasing one is extreme. You also need a really big tractor to pull one.
If, as the articles suggests, no till sequesters more CO2, uses less carbon based fuel, and produces yields comparative to "conventional" farming practices why would an organic gardener/farmer not use no till practices?

Kimm, I am impressed by a very rare original statement from yourself! So it seems you allow for the possibility that the term "no-till" is a misnomer.

So now we have a starting point for an actual discussion. What we are talking about is different kinds and amounts of tillages. What the article is talking about is mulching to reduce weed domination and pulling weeds by hand and doing any tillage that does happen with hand-tools. I did that for years, and still do. It's fine, there is nothing wrong with it, per say, and it does have all the advantages as noted. It also has limitations.

The biggest is that it is not easy to introduce important materials, for example finished compost, rock powders, etc, throughout the active soil profile. Another is that adhering strictly to layering rather than incorporation on light soils leads to very low levels of some macro-nutrients. That has been my experience. Occasional flipping of the soil can be useful. Flipping soil is tillage, whether with a spade or a turning plow.

kimm says, "What passes for "no till" on many farms today means you run a disc over the field to incorporate the stubble into the soil instead of plows."

Not in my book or area.

The no till farm soil is firmer than chisel tilled soil [ a very common tillage on non no till]. This chisel/rip/strip tillage partially incorporates residue.

I am with Pat on using some incorporating tillage on home gardens. I also doubt that mycorhizae filiments overwinter on annuals in colder regions.

I have no doubt many use their own personal definitions of the various tillage terms and even the equipment. It is also likely that different ag organizations have their own definitions. Until everyone uses similar definitions, discussions just go around and around.

Lloyd

Here is a link that might be useful: Tillage, Organic Matter and Crop Residue Management

The biggest misunderstanding about microbes and the mychorihizae filaments, is that the belief, that tilling can destroy their very existance.
That is like saying that a broom dipped in Lysol can sterilize a hospital. :)

Thanks LLoyd for the informational link. What I call no-till is zero no-till. The only openings in the soil is for seeding and in some cases the incorporation of ammonia.

I like some tilling in my gardens though as I can amend the the texture and structure quickly and in the desired direction easily. In large fields I can see where the no-till and limited tillage is likely better because cover/green crops are the exception and not the rule. It is pretty easy to do home gardens right, but it is much more effort to do it on 3,000 acres.

Useful info, Lloyd.

And on a home garden level, 'tilling' is running your 7 hp tiller over your garden/flower beds - or not. :-)

Some may say that some tillage is harmful to earthworms.

I believe that if you have the organic material there, the worms will come. Yes, some may be disturbed or hurt by tilling, but if you plant cover crops like the "tillage" radishes in the fall, they do the work of earthworms. They bring up minerals, fiberize channels for air and drainage, add organic matter, leave holes for warming in the spring, and help to bring some nitrogen over the winter while leaving the soil mellow.

Hey if most of our corn is grown with a notill method then it works, period!

The very act of seeding grains into the soil could probably be thought of as tilling the soil. The very act of planting most everything could be thought of as tilling the soil since to do so you would need to disturb the soil. The term "no till" may be a misnomer for some unable to grasp a concept and probably for those the term "minimal tilling" should be used.
By the way, I am not the one that concieved of the term "no till", but from the start I did understand that term to mean "minimal tillage" and not absolutely no turning of the soil.

Ok, that will be salutary, I'll refer to what we are discussing as minimal till and you (since you grasp the concept and therefor have no need for this pointless thread in any case) will continue to mis-call it no-till.

And, to re-iterate, since I guess you weren't paying attention, crops can be sown with truly zero soil disturbance. It is a method invented by Masanobu Fukoaka, and I insist that you go read about his work (starting with the 'one straw revolution') and then discuss it with me rather than me simply telling you what I'm talking about. I will say that I have tried the method a few times and found it pretty ineffective in my conditions and climate, which are quite different from southern Japan.

I have read Fukoaka's work, along with many others and I find that Sir Albert Howard, Lady Eve Balfour, Friend Sykes, and J. I. Rodale have said it all already. Those that have written most about organic gardening since the mid 1960's are simply restating what has been said better by these others.
Perhaps this link might be of some use to a few. Just bear with the beginning ad about someone named Justin Bieber.

Here is a link that might be useful: a not till video

"(since you grasp the concept and therefor have no need for this pointless thread in any case)"

Yea really.

Let's see if it's possible to cut through your didactic rhetoric:

How would you convert a piece of pasture that has not been tilled in a very long time? To make it a thought exercise that works in your one-size-fits-all way of thinking, lets pretend this pasture is in MI near a very large body of fresh water.

I saw something about a farm in MI that alomost went broke because they decided to try no-till. I still want to let everyone know that most of our corn is in fact grown with 'notill'.

The type of soil you're working with and what you're trying to grow should dictate what method you use.

There is no one-size-fits-all method that works for every soil. Well, tilling works for every soil, but it can become both excessive work and cause damage over time in some areas. No-till amendments in areas with pH issues (esp. high pH in high temperature areas where organic amendments "burn" before incorporating into the soil) or trying to grow sweet potatoes in heavy clay doesn't lead to anything a grower would consider positive. You can no-till amend high pH issues a lot easier in Wisconsin compared to Utah. You can no-till sweet potatoes a lot easier in Oregon compared to North Carolina.

If you're "blessed" with nice, loamy soil you can no-till your heart out whether you formed it with amendments or it was already there. If you're growing a mixed-planting home garden and you want to no-till you might have to pass on growing some stuff unless you can condition the soil before you start a no-till method.

When it comes to soil, gardening in Arizona has different considerations than gardening in Iowa than gardening in South Carolina...etc

Texture, pH management, nutrient management, and any additions you make to change any of these react differently in different types of soil.

Ah, Mr. Brown. You keep rehashing the same old points again and again, ad nauseaum.
If you really had read about no till you would know that most all proponents of that practice will agree that sometimes tilling is necessary, but that once the soil has been properly prepped tilling is not necessary again.

I will indeed keep rehashing your same old edicts again and again simply to spare people here who might not know better from thinking that your recommendations will get good results in Arizona or Saskatchewan or Arabia. Or to prevent them from destroying a piece of pasture to make OM to improve a few feet of garden space.

Nc-crn has the correct view: nearly every factor in crop production can vary. We could correctly call them variables. Your edicts carry no allowance for variance, which means they are true only in certain circumstances.

For instance, once soil has been "properly prepped", tilling is not necessary EVER again? Never is a long time. Even the working lifetime of a gardener is a long time, and I'd be willing to bet that such an area will have to be tilled again, in some way, or else it will cease to be usefully productive within some timescale that would be unacceptable to most gardeners.

Adjusting pH in the root zone without tilling is very hard (or time consuming, like 3-10 years time consuming) unless you only want to adjust the first 2" of soil.

If you live in an area where your soil experiences pH changes every 1-3 years tilling to at least 6-10" when needed is a lot more beneficial than no-till surface applications. This isn't an issue for everyone, though.

Nutrient movement and soil texture changes are a lot easier than pH adjustments in no-till. pH is a bit harder to adjust without using more expensive fine-particle, liquid suspended applications.

Some soils benefit from a good tilling every few years (3, 5, 10, etc) depending on the pH influences going on in the area...native soil, quality of rain/irrigation, etc.

Some people don't have to deal with this depending on their soil or what they're trying to grow in the soil.

I find it VERY useful in my gardens to do at least some tillage. I am not interested in tillage just because uncle Ernie did it or because I used to do it more extensively.

Probably those dropping some seeds into the ground after pulling back some mulch are not doing a very large area of gardening.

"Probably those dropping some seeds into the ground after pulling back some mulch are not doing a very large area of gardening."

That's a fair guess, I bet. I do some of my beds that way and it's very limited. Without herbicides, minimal-tillage would not produce much food for the masses, not unless those masses all have little gardens. Which would be an ideal, actually.

I hear you wayne 5. I do no till only with transplants. Why you may ask? Well I have a lot of what around here are called Night crawlers thanks to our English friends who hauled them across the pond. and in the spring and fall they can do unbelievable damage to a seedling bed 50% damage is not unusual so Carrots Radish Lettuce and up to bean sized seedlings are damaged. Night crawlers do not like the soil disturbed and will not bother the young plants right after tilling giving the seedlings a chance to grow. Yes I like worms,but sometimes we must take the good with the bad.

Curt

Now I am curious.
I have one garden down in the Hutchinson area of Minn. I am fairly sure you would know the county.
I/we have a LOT of night crawlers.
They can, and do, make lawns far from smooth. If you go out at night bare-foot you can feel them under your toes BUT I have never, ever had them cause problems in the garden.

How do they affect your garden?

I have another garden up in the sandy ground up by St.Cloud and actually transplanted some up there.

I didn't think that earthworms would touch a growing plant.

OK Where to start. I am a retired widower that gardens for diet and economy. a few years back I started square foot gardening so I could have a kitchen garden and a more varied diet growing vegetables in succession and small plantings. So reading about no till on GW I tried it in a small open bed and in the small hoop house I have. Now In square foot gardening plants are planted in a pattern per square instead of rows. Well I am in the habit of having morning coffee in the hoop house. so looking over the seedlings every morning there would be some missing? What in the world is eating my plants? I see no bugs so I started slipping into the hoop house at night with a red led headlamp the only thing that showed up was Night crawlers grabbing everything and pulling it down their holes. Now do they eat what they pull down I don't know I would guess they do I seem to recall a study in England that said that Crawlers like legumes. I have no link to that study. Charles Darwin's study also said that worms extrude their stomachs onto a leaf to digest it with alkaloids. I assumed he was reporting on live plants or at least fresh picked. Well it boiled down to this I had a 2x2 foot square with 36 spinach plants and ended up with 14 that's a 40% loss. Now that's not the only time it has happened just the first time I found out what was destroying my seedlings. Transplants seem to be to big for them to damage other the some miner leaf damage to lettuce.

Curt P.S. Do I need a new post on this?

Worms can grab and move leaves and gtass. They cannot grab and move onions. Iis physically impossible.

Of course you might have the only earthworms in the world with teeth

Look up basic earthworm biology.

I've never heard that earthworms actually attempt to tear loose and consume ot store any type of living material. Leaves and blades of grass must be dead, from my understanding.

Been digging hundreds of feet of potatoes lately and thinking about this subject. If one was set on not disturbing soil (ever) producing potatoes would be difficult.

In some areas you can no-till potatoes because the natural soil structure allows it.

Clays...the type of clay you see in the North-West are vastly different than the ones you see in the South-East (grey vs "red" and the parent materials). Even though moisture may be similar, the soils of the North-West can allow potato/sweet potato production under no-till a whole lot easier. In the South-East it's a bit trickier to "bad idea."

I presume you are talking about the growing under some kind of material, like straw, etc, method. I agree, that is really only viable on heavy soil.

A lot of the "grey" clays of the North-West also contain some very nice loamy soil even if they're mostly clay content. It causes a kind of "sticky" feeling to the soil. Potatoes can generally thrive and produce quite well, in many cases better than or just as good as tilled soil. Most of the hardening in these type of clays take place on the surface from moisture drying/cracking the top few mm to inch or so.

In the South-East a lot of the "red" clays can be quite hard throughout the soil profile with little else in the clay soil aside from the clay, itself. Tilling is usually a lot more beneficial.

Btw, in those North-West no-till clays it's usually a lot better to have a surface reside or straw in order to keep the plant seedlings from having to work through that dried clay on the top layer. Once they emerge and have some age on them they do just fine.

Growing no-till on Minnesota black-gumbo reduces production considerably.
I have tried it several times with same result.

Everyone has made points I can agree with.
Carbon sequestration works better if the roots can go deep.
The roots go deep at Rodale because they plow deep 2 years and then use no-till the third year.
The organic matter and amendments have been worked deep so the roots go deep.
They reduce erosion with cover crops but they do not eliminate it.
Any act of disturbing the soil no matter how small allows some erosion.

I think we are missing the real solution to the problem.
The real solution is to stop buying corn fed beef (eat grass fed).
Farmers will grow corn as long as people buy it.
It is easier to make beef taste good with corn, but it can be done with grass.
It is just harder.
If managed properly, permanent pastures are the best way to stop erosion and actually build soil.

We should also stop using corn for ethanol even if it is "no-till".
It consumes as much as it produces and still causes erosion.
It is important to keep pushing for true no-till or even partial no-till,
but lets chop off the head of the snake, not the tail.

In my garden, I can only use no-till about every 3-4 years.
Most of the time I disturb the soil by mowing first.
Then I till shallow.
Then I till deep if necessary.
It gives the insects and worms a chance to withdraw.
Then I plant very quickly to cover the soil and feed the mycorrhizal fungus.
Everything recovers quickly.

Here is a link that might be useful: Garden For Nutrition

This post was edited by GreeneGarden on Tue, Dec 11, 12 at 19:25

I agree we should cut way back on beef production, as well all animal products.

Also, permanent pasture when poorly managed or on marginal soils is a terrible use of land, much better to let it grow into scrub.

Actually, I think we should eat more goat.
It has a great FCR and makes optimal use of marginal land.

Here is a link that might be useful: Garden For Nutrition

Are we confusing small gardens with Large framers?
Many till by hand or use a oil power for about 20% of the tilling.
I have turn large layers of Organic matter under( the first sheet composting was always turned under, OGM),with a tiller.
You can till with a shovel & hoe also.
To say TMG is making money off videos is just rude.
kimmsr disagrees with me a lot on no till & knows a lot more about NT, then I.
kimmsr is always posting links & videos,& I never thought kimmsr was making money from the links.
Just trying to get me to see it as he/she does.
Money is not everything, we gardeners know this.

Posted by gardenlen s/e qld aust (My Page) on Wed, Nov 21, 12 at 14:27

"TMG is really pushing a barrow by the looks of it got some sort of agenda, can't see the forest(what's left after farming) for the trees. but he has his right or her right to an opinion even if pushed with some force."

Its called thinking Rationally. You should try it some time.

This post was edited by TheMasterGardener1 on Sun, Dec 9, 12 at 13:21

I agree we should cut way back on beef production, as well all animal products.

There are large swaths of the country where grazing is about the only sustainable land use. And grass-fed beef is good stuff.

Feedlots are awful.