Posted by Hal/ Eastern WA on April 17, 2014 at 11:10:43 from (97.115.168.117):
In Reply to: no till vs tillage posted by Brian806 on April 17, 2014 at 09:25:22:
I think it depends on where you are and what you are planting. My cousins in NE Montana have done low till farming for more than 25 years with very good success, mostly planting spring wheat. Back in the full till days, it was necessary to do strip farming to retain moisture, but now most of the area farmers plant as much acreage as possible, and get much better crops than they used to. Another problem in their light, sandy soil was wind erosion, but with low till and not doing the summer fallowing they used to, wind erosion and dust have been all but eliminated.
My cousins have a huge plow--I don"t remember how many bottoms it has, but I think it is about 16--that is still on their farm. They used to use it every year, but now say they don"t think it has been in the ground for 20 years or so.
No or low till farming has really helped my cousins get much better profits from their farm. They have to spend more on fertilizer and other chemicals than the old way of farming, but many fewer passes over the ground with machinery cuts down on the cost of fuel, which as we know is many times higher per gallon than when they started farming 40+ years ago.
I also suspect that their area gets more moisture these days than it used to, which is an incredible help to dryland farmers. And there are newer varieties that maybe take less moisture to give more wheat kernals. At any rate, the low till farming they do now gives them much better yields than the old full tillage methods their Dad used.
But maybe in some areas the same no or low till methods would not work nearly as well.
Progress marches on. If there didn"t get to be ways to do things better, easier and cheaper, people would continue to do what had been done earlier. Good luck!
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