No Till Notes: 'Looking back'

I’ve been thinking about what I learned during the past winter months while attending numerous educational events focusing on no-till crop production. While there are many benefits to no-till crop production I think the most important message I heard was the benefits of diversifying crops and cropping systems to benefit soil health.

The benefits of diversified continuous cropping are numerous including building organic matter, improved soil microbiology, water infiltration and water holding capacities of the soil. The biggest benefit is the improved performance of the soil once these other benefits are realized.

The most dramatic example was the presentation Gabe Brown, a farmer/rancher from Bismark, North Dakota has seen on his farm since he began focusing on soil health. Gabe has been implementing a production system on his farm over the past 15-20 years that focuses on improving the performance and health of the soils he works with.

Gabe utilizes diverse forage mixtures for grazing cattle, cover crops grown after harvesting cash crops and companion crops grown with his cash crops. He has improved the performance of his soils over the years by improving the organic matter content of the soil from 2 percent organic matter to over 6 percent organic matter.

With this improvement in soil health he has also improved the soil microbial diversity and populations. These microbes in the soil better mineralize nutrients from the soil which are made available to the plants he grows.

The improved soil organic matter has allowed his soil to hold more water in the soil which is available to the crops he produces. His soils are also able to infiltrate over 8 inches of precipitation per hour into the soil. His soils can get the moisture he receives into the soil and also store it which is a huge benefit under his dry land farming operation.

With this production system that Gabe has developed on his farm he has been able to reduce his dependence on herbicides, pesticides and commercial fertilizer. This has allowed him to dramatically lower his cost of production for the cash crops he produces.

An example of this is the corn crop Gabe produced last year. Gabe was able to produce a corn crop that averaged 142 bushels per acre under dry land production. Gabe produced this crop of corn with less than 16 inches of precipitation for the corn crop to utilize to produce this yield. Gabe used no commercial fertilizer to produce this crop. He used no pesticide and only one burn down of herbicide prior to seeding the corn crop.

Think about what Gabe accomplished with his improved soil health for a minute. He raised 142 bushel per acre corn yield with no fertilizer, one herbicide application and less than 16 inches of precipitation. I find that accomplishment amazing!

Gabe also made the most important statement I heard during the educational events I have attended. Gabe was talking about sustainability as being the hot topic in agriculture. As you are probably aware the word sustainability is used frequently in agriculture these days.

Gabe made the statement that we should not be satisfied with trying to sustain a degraded resource. Why not focus on improving the health of the soil resource? Why not focus on improving the soils so the soils can reach their potential performance levels and improve the profitability of our operations? The focus on soil health makes a lot of sense when you see what Gabe has accomplished on his farm.

Next week in this column, we will take a look at diversification and how I see this could be applied by many of us in this area. I feel we may be able to start down the path that Gabe has shown works. The path will lead us to slowly begin to improve the health of our soils here in our region.