Meristem: Top Stories

The sky won't fall in if farmers need a bit of tilling to fine tune normally zero till operations, says Dr. Byron Irvine. In fact, a little "strategic tillage" can help boost farming success without compromising long-term soil productivity.

A little "strategic tillage" may help normally zero-till farmers get better results, says Dr. Byron Irvine.

"There was a belief out there that if you ever stir up a zero-till field you've basically reset the clock to zero," he says. "You get rid of all the benefits of zero tillage that you've accumulated for 10 years by just going in there and tilling it once."

But for the long time Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) crop management researcher, there seemed to be more to the issue than black and white.

"That didn't ring true from what I understood about organic matter," says Irvine, who works at the AAFC Brandon Research Centre.

To give farmers a better look at how some tillage might affect their zero-till operations, Irvine and colleagues conducted a study with support from the Western Grains Research Foundation (WGRF) Endowment Fund.

The results confirmed that a modest amount of tillage may not be as harmful to soil quality and crop performance in zero-till programs as currently thought. In fact, when done right this practice can enhance crop growth without significantly compromising soil quality.

Irvine says it's too early to recommend exactly how much tillage could or should be done in a zero-till operation. But if farmers feel it necessary to do some "strategic tilling," they shouldn't worry this will unduly compromise the health of their soil or performance of their crop.

"This study wasn't about encouraging people to either till or zero-till land," he says. "It was more about answering the question: 'If you need to till, will the sky fall in?' And the answer to that question is an unequivocal, 'No.'"

Learn more about the study findings in this WGRF Research Report, available on the WGRF Web site.

Reprintable with permission. Reproduction of this article - in whole or in part, in print or electronic - requires direct permission from Meristem Information Resources, Ltd. Contact Meristem directly to request reprint permission.

Archives

All or nothing for zero-till?