16
Reducing Tillage
…the crying need is for a soil surface similar to
that which we find in nature. …[and] the way to attain
it is to use an implement that is incapable of burying
the trash it encounters; in other words,
any implement except the plow.
—E.H. Faulkner, 1943
Although tillage is an ancient practice, the question of which tillage system is most appropriate for any particular field or farm is still difficult to answer. Before we discuss different tillage systems, let’s consider why people started tilling ground. Tillage was first practiced by farmers who grew small-grain crops, such as wheat, rye and barley, primarily in Western Asia (the Fertile Crescent), Europe, and Northern Africa. Tillage was primarily practiced because it created a fine seedbed, thereby greatly improving germination. It also gave the crop a head-start before a new flush of weeds, and stimulated mineralization of organic nitrogen to forms that plants could use. The soil was typically loosened by a simple ard (scratch plow) in several directions to create fine aggregates and a smooth seedbed. The loosened soil also tended to provide a more favorable rooting environment, facilitating seedling survival and plant growth. Animal traction was employed to accomplish this arduous task. At the end of the growing season, the entire crop was harvested, because the straw also had considerable economic value for animal bedding, roofing thatch, brick making, and fuel. Sometimes, fields were burned after crop harvest to remove remaining crop residues and to control pests. Although this cropping system lasted for a long time, it resulted in excessive erosion, especially in the Mediterranean region, where it caused extensive soil degradation. Eventually deserts spread as the climate became drier.
Ancient agricultural systems in the Americas did not use intensive full-field tillage for grain production as they did not have oxen or horses to perform the arduous tillage work. Instead, the Early Americans used mostly direct seeding with planting sticks, or manual hoes that created small mounds (hilling). These practices were well adapted to the staple crops of corn and beans, which have large seeds and require lower plant densities than the cereal crops of the Old World. Several seeds were placed in each small hill which was spaced several feet apart from the next one. In temperate or wet regions the hills were elevated to provide a temperature and moisture advantage to the crop. In contrast with the smaller grain cereal-based systems (wheat, rye, barley, rice) growing only one crop in a monoculture, these fields often included the intercropping of two or three plant species growing at the same time, like the corn, bean and squash of the Three Sisters system in North America. This hilling system was generally less prone to erosion than whole-field tillage, but climate and soil conditions on steep slopes still frequently caused considerable soil degradation.
A third ancient tillage system, again very different from the others, was practiced as part of the rice-growing cultures in southern and eastern Asia. Here, paddies are tilled to control weeds and puddle the soil to create a dense layer that limits the downward losses of water through the soil. The puddling process occurrs when the soil is worked while wet — in the plastic or liquid consistency state, chapter 7 — and was specifically aimed at destroying soil aggregates. This system was designed to benefit rice plants which thrive under flooded conditions, especially relative to competing weeds. There is little soil erosion, because paddy rice must be grown either on flat or terraced lands and runoff is controlled as part of the process of growing the crop. As an aside, recent research efforts on rice are focusing on less puddling and ponding to conserve soil health and water.
Full-field tillage systems became more widespread because they are better adapted to mechanized agriculture and in time some of the traditional hill crops like corn eventually became row crops. The moldboard plow was invented by the Chinese 2500 years ago, but was redesigned into a more effective tool in 1700’s England. It provided weed control by fully turning under crop residues, growing weeds, and weed seeds. Its benefits were compelling at first, allowing for a more stable food supply and also facilitating the breaking of new lands in the Americas. The development of increasingly powerful tractors made tillage an easier task (some say a recreationalactivity) and resulted in more intensive soil disturbance, ultimately contributing to the degradation of soils.
New technologies have lessened the need for tillage. The development of herbicides reduced the need for soil plowing as a weed control method. New planters achieve better seed placement, even without preparing a seedbed beforehand. Amendments, such as fertilizers and liquid manures, can be directly injected or band-applied. Now, there are even vegetable transplanters that provide good soil-root contact in reduced or no-till systems. Although herbicides often are used to kill cover crops before planting the main crop, farmers and researchers have found that they can obtain good cover crop control through well-timed mowing or rolling (figure 16.1) - greatly reducing the amount of herbicide needed. If there is sufficient cover crop biomass, the mat acts an effective barrier to weeds and provides nearly complete control.
Figure 16.1 Rolled rye cover crop is being prepared for row-crop planting (photo by Anu Rangarajan).
Increased mechanization, intensive tillage, and erosion have degraded many agricultural soils to such an extent that people think they require tillage to provide temporary relief from compaction. As aggregates are destroyed, crusting and compaction create a soil “addicted” to tillage. Except perhaps for organic crop production systems, where tillage is often needed because herbicides aren’t used, a crop can be produced with limited or no tillage with better economic returns as conventional tillage systems. Managing soil in the right way to make reduced tillage systems successful, however, remains a challenge.
Tillage systems
Tillage systems are often classified by the amount of surface residue left on the soil surface. Conservation tillage systems leave more than 30 percent of the soil surface covered with crop residue. This surface residue cover is considered to be a level at which erosion is significantly reduced (see figure 16.1). Of course, this surface residue cover partially depends on the amount and physical characteristics of residue left after harvest, which may vary greatly among crops and harvest method (for example, corn harvested for grain or silage). Although residue cover greatly influences erosion potential, the sole focus on it is somewhat misleading. Erosion potential also is affected by factors such as surface roughness and soil loosening. Another distinction is whether tillage systems are full-field systems or restricted tillage systems. The benefits and limitations of various tillage systems are compared in table 16.1.
TABLE 16.1Tillage System Benefits and Limitations
TILLAGE SYSTEM / BENEFITS / LIMITATIONS
FULL-FIELD TILLAGE
Moldboard plow / Easy incorporation of fertilizers and amendments.
Buries surface weed seeds.
Soil dries out fast.
Temporarily reduces compaction. / Leaves soil bare.
Destroys natural aggregation and enhances organic matter loss.
Surface crusting and accelerated erosion common.
Causes plow pans.
High energy requirements.
Chisel plow / Same as above, but with more surface residues. / Same as above, but less aggressive destruction of soil structure, less erosion, less crusting, no plow pans, and less energy use.
Disc harrow / Same as above. / Same as above.
RESTRICTED TILLAGE
No-till / Little soil disturbance.
Few trips over field.
Low energy use.
Most surface residue cover and erosion protection. / Hard to incorporate fertilizers and amendments.
Wet soils slow to dry and warm up in spring.
Can’t alleviate compaction by using tillage.
Zone-till / Same as above. / Same as above, but fewer problems
with compaction.
Ridge-till / Easy incorporation of fertilizers and amendments.
Some weed control as ridges are built.
Seed zone on ridge dries and warms more quickly. / Hard to use together with sod-type or narrow-row crop in rotation.
Equipment needs to be adjusted to travel without disturbing ridges.
Conventional Tillage
A full-field system manages the soil uniformly across the entire field surface. Conventional tillage typically involves a primary pass with a heavy tillage tool to loosen the soil and incorporate materials at the surface (fertilizers, amendments, weeds, etc.), followed by one or more secondary tillage passes to create a suitable seedbed. Primary tillage tools are generally moldboard plows (Figure 16.3, left), chisels (figure 16.3, right), and heavy disks (figure 16.4, left), while secondary tillage is accomplished with finishing disks (figure 16.4, right), tine or tooth harrows, rollers, packers, drags, etc. These tillage systems create a uniform and often finely aggregated seedbed over the entire surface of the field. Such systems appear to perform well because they create near-ideal conditions for seed germination and crop establishment.
Moldboard plowing is energy intensive, leaves very little residue on the surface, and often requires multiple secondary tillage passes. It also tends to create dense pans below the depth of plowing (typically 6 to 8 inches). However, moldboard plowing has traditionally been a reliable practice and almost always results in reasonable crop growth. Chisel implements generally provide results similar to the moldboard plow, but require less energy and leave significantly more residue on the surface. Chisels also allow for more flexibility in depth of tillage, generally from 5 to 12 inches, with some tools specifically designed to go deeper.
Disk plows come in heavy versions as a primary tillage tool that usually go 6 to 8 inches deep, or lighter ones that perform shallower tillage and still leave residue on the surface. Disks also create concerns with developing tillage pans at their bottoms. They are sometimes used as both primary and secondary tillage tools through repeated passes that increasingly pulverize the soil. This limits the upfront investment in tillage tools, but is not sustainable in the long run.
Figure 16.3 Left: Moldboard plowing inverts a sod and leaves no surface protection. Right: chisel plow shanks till soil and leave some residue cover.
Although full-field tillage systems have their disadvantages, they can help overcome certain problems, such as compaction and high weed pressures. Organic farmers often use moldboard plowing as a necessity to provide adequate weed control and facilitate nitrogen release from incorporated legumes. Livestock-based farms often use a plow to incorporate manure and to help make rotation transitions from sod crops to row crops.
Besides incorporating surface residue, full-field tillage systems with intensive secondary tillage crush the natural soil aggregates. The pulverized soil does not take heavy rainfall well. The lack of surface residue causes sealing at the surface, which generates runoff and erosion and creates hard crusts after drying. Intensively tilled soil will also settle after moderate to heavy rainfall and may “hardset” upon drying, thereby restricting root growth.
Full-field tillage systems can be improved by using tools, such as chisels (figure 16.3, right), that leave some residue on the surface. Reducing secondary tillage also helps decrease negative aspects of full-field tillage. Compacted soils tend to till up cloddy and intensive harrowing and packing is then seen as necessary to create a good seedbed. This additional tillage creates a vicious cycle of further soil degradation with intensive tillage. Secondary tillage often can be reduced through the use of modern conservation planters, which create a finely aggregated zone around the seed without requiring the entire soil width to be pulverized. A good planter is perhaps the most important secondary tillage tool, because it helps overcome poor soil-seed contact without destroying surface aggregates over the entire field. A fringe benefit of reduced secondary tillage is that rougher soil oftentimes has much higher water infiltration rates and reduces problems with settling and hardsetting after rains. Weed seed germination is also generally reduced, but pre-emergence herbicides tend to be less effective than with smooth seedbeds. Reducing secondary tillage may, therefore, require emphasis on post-emergence weed control.
Figure 16.4 Left: A heavy disk can be used for primary and secondary tillage, but creates pans. Right: A finishing disk.
In more intensive horticultural systems, powered tillage tools are often used, which are actively rotated by the tractor power take off system (figure 16.5). Rotary tillers (rotovators, rototillers) provide very intensive soil mixing that is damaging to soil in the long term. It should only be considered if accompanied by incorporation of organic materials like compost or manure. But even then it is recommended to refrain from such a tool. A spaderis also an actively rotated tillage tool, but the small spades, similar to the garden tool, handle soil more gently and leave more residue or organic additions at the surface.
Figure 16.5 Powered tillage tools used with horticultural crops: rotary tiller (left), and spader (right).
Restricted Tillage Systems
These systems are based on the idea that tillage can be limited to the area around the plant row and does not have to disturb the entire field. Several tillage systems fit this concept — no-till, zone/strip-till, and ridge-till.
No-tillage: This system does not involve any soil loosening, except for a very narrow and shallow area immediately around the seed zone. This localized disturbance is typically accomplished with a conservation planter (for row crops) or seed drill (for narrow-seeded crops; figure 16.6). This system represents the most extreme change from conventional tillage, and is most effective in preventing soil erosion and building organic matter.
Figure 16.6 Left: A no-till seed drill requires no tillage or seedbed preparation for narrow-seeded crops and cover crops. Right: The cross-slot opener used in no-tillage planters. The disk slices soil, the inverted T blade allows seed and fertilizer placement on opposite ends of disk, and the packer wheels close and firm the seedbed.
No-till systems have been used successfully on many soils in different climates. The surface residue protects against erosion (figure 14.3, page XX) and increases biological activity by protecting the soil from temperature and heat extremes. Surface residues also reduce water evaporation, which — combined with deeper rooting — reduces the susceptibility to drought. This tillage system is especially well adapted to coarse-textured (sands and gravels) and well-drained soils, as these tend to be softer and less susceptible to compaction. No-till systems sometimes have initial lower yields than conventional tillage. It takes a few years for no-tilled soils to improve, after which it typically out-yields conventional tillage. This transition can be very challenging because a radical move from conventional to no-tillage can create failures if the soil was previously degraded and compacted. It is better to build degraded soils with organic matter management and use intermediate tillage methods, as described in the next sections.
With the absence of tillage, seed placement and weed control become critical. No-till planters and drills (figure 16.6) are advanced pieces of engineering that need to be rugged and adaptable to different soil conditions, yet be able to place a seed precisely at pre-specified depths. The technology has come a long way since Jethro Tull’s early seeders, especially in the past decades when no-till seeders have been continually improved.
The quality of no-tilled soil improves over time as seen in Table 16.2 which compares physical, chemical and biological soil health indicators after 32 years of plow and no-tillage in a New York experiment. The beneficial effects of no-tillage are quite consistent for physical indicators, especially with aggregate stability. Biological indicators are similarly more favorable for no-tillage, and organic matter is 35% higher than plow tillage. The effects are less apparent for chemical properties, except the pH is slightly more favorable for no-till, and the early-season nitrate concentration is 50% higher. Other experiments have also demonstrated that long-term reduced tillage increases nitrogen availability from organic matter, which may result in considerable fertilizer savings.
Table 16.2 The effect of 32 years of plow and no-tillage under corn production on selected soil health indicators. Higher values indicate better health except for those listed with an asterisk, for which lower values are better (source: Moebius et al., 2008).