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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] No-Tillage

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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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  • From: "mcoldiron" <mcoldiron@crcom.net>
  • To: "Healthy soil and sustainable growing" <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] No-Tillage
  • Date: Sun, 28 Dec 2008 20:10:07 -0600

I am a small dry land. market farmer in west Texas with an average annual rainfall of 17 inches. The soil here is a sandy loam. Do you think no-till can be managed under these circumstances?

TxBeeFarmer (Mark)
West Texas Zone 7b

On 12/28/2008 2:12:40 PM, Tradingpost (tradingpost@lobo.net) wrote:
No-Tillage
Whole Systems Agriculture
October, 2004
http://netptc.net/flowermanoat/wSAgHTM/Pages/notillage.htm

Since tillage is one of the more threatening agricultural practices to
sustainability, it is a puzzle to me how production systems that include
tillage can also claim to be sustainable. Its practice goes back more
than
6000 years to the very dawn of agriculture. An historical review of
civilizations that have flourished and crashed over this time will reveal
that virtually all of them either depleted their own soil or were
defeated
in resource wars focusing on food; which is to say, soil. In 200 years of
European style agriculture, the United States has lost a third of its
topsoil to erosion by wind and water--a direct consequence of tillage and
a
fact known by just about every student who has taken an agriculture
course.

Less known is the depleting effect tillage has on soil organic
matter
because of oxidation resulting from the admission of air by tillage.
This
oxidation, that is the burning up of organic matter, releases lots of
soluble nutrients so farmers get good immediate results at the expense of
the soil's long-term, stored-up fertility. This is just like withdrawing





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