Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Pete Vukovich <pvukovic1@yahoo.com>]

I'd say soil that has a porous or thin eluviation zone (so called 'A' zone in some texts) benefits from occasional tillage as an example, likewise some soils with clay substrates are improved by tillage particularly those that get bound up with large amounts of nutrient robbing mosses. I also think tillage removes some weeds better than roll crimping (eg my old friend swamp hemlock), and I think some heavier compacted soils can be improved by it also.

No question that tillage reduces the bacterial and fungal load - which sometimes is a good thing, of course it can also interfere with soil structure/peds. Again depending on conditions / slope / climate ... etc both structure and soil supporting communities tend to restore themselves.

 Wildlife does some small scale 'tilling' of its own which benefit some soils and some plants, something I believe which is fairly well known to mushroom hunters.

I don't think there are any absolutes with respect to tillage any more than there are absolutes with respect to soil type and structure. My view here is largely influenced by my observations not by being an expert. I've yet to fully understand how cactus and orchids grow next to each other in an oak forest on sand substrates (which are self tilling due to the wind and yes its deep tillage) in a climate thats subzero more than half of the year.  I just think its a case by case basis not some sort of golden rule...

--- On Fri, 6/18/10, Tradingpost <tradingpost@lobo.net> wrote:

From: Tradingpost <tradingpost@lobo.net>
Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] on Logsdon and the many versions of no-till
To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
Date: Friday, June 18, 2010, 9:19 PM

All tillage is destructive to soil, basic principle. No-till advocates point out that soil that "needs" tilling doesn't need tilling; it needs cover crops and/or ruminants to improve it's percolation and moisture retention properties. If it can't be taken out of production to start rebuilding it, then it shouldn't be in production in the first place, and those depending on its income should be flipping burgers. You don't improve the productive capacity of soil over time by plowing or tilling; you weaken it. What kind of soil would you say needs weakening?

Topsoil loss and degradation is old news and it's been a growing threat to US production for decades. It's a threat to food security, to national security. Is there any other way to turn it around? I'd like to hear it.

We just don't need corporate megafarms producing endless tons of grains and corn and hay to feed millions more cattle and pigs in CAFOs than we need for good diet. We don't need them competing with the rest of us for increasingly scarce water and fossil fuels for FF-based fertilizers and pesticides. They could go broke tomorrow and that would suit me fine. Without your tax dollars subsidizing their corporate owners they would go belly up tomorrow. They could be sold off in small parcels to family farmers to grow all the calorie foods needed and much more. Statistically small farms are more productive per acre - on an annual basis of diversified cropping.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net


*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 6/18/2010 at 12:52 PM Pete Vukovich wrote:

>Good points it is and should be a spectrum. I also think that optimal
>frequencies and types of tilling depend on the soil and crops themselves. 
>Logsdon seems to also be leaving out orchards for some reason, or perhaps
>where he lives they get tilled.....
>
>


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