Articles Tagged with ''farmers''

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What I've Learned from No-Tilling

Finding No-Till’s Weakest Link Is Essential

Having just one problem in a no-till system is enough to cause serious problems and it can happen at any time — even after 20 years of no-tilling.
When you think about being directly involved with saving a natural resource as significant as the Chesapeake Bay, it’s hard not to get excited. That noble thought might be enough reason all by itself to really hard sell continuous no-till systems, including cover crops and rotations. And when you can see clearly that no-till makes farming more profitable — in addition to the big-picture environmental equation — you can start to sense that we’re onto something, as they say, that’s really big.
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What I've Learned from No-Tilling

Continuous No-Till Really Does Pay

While 23 percent of the country’s total cropland is now being no-tilled, less than 12 percent has been continuously no-tilled for more than 5 years.
If I had to pick out one consistent thing about no-tilling that I have observed over and over, it is that most no-till benefits come with continuous no-till — season to season and crop to crop. That’s the message I delivered last winter to attendees at the 2005 National No-Tillage Conference just a few days after I retired from the Natural Resources Conservation Service. And it’s the message I would like to expand upon as a private consultant: It’s time for the no-till community to aim higher.
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No-Tillers Enter The Carbon Lottery

Storing carbon is becoming a value-added option for Canadian growers.
A small group of no-till farmers will become the first in Canada to be paid for storing carbon in their soils as part of a pilot project exploring ways of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
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Tough No-Till Competition

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, we taught Brazilian farmers how to no-till successfully. Now, they’re kicking our butts in the worldwide export market due to lower cropping costs and a tremendous boost in no-tilled acres.
When several University of Kentucky agronomists and others headed to South America 35 years ago to show farmers there how to no-till, little did they realize that demonstrating this new technology would eventually turn Brazil into a major player in the world food market and a serious competitor for our grain exports. It’s not likely that they foresaw the eventual impact this would have on prices being paid to American farmers today.
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What Should You Charge The Neighbors?

Facing higher input costs, more farmers than ever are taking a closer look at no-till. While there may be numerous opportunities for you to no-till more acres in your area while adding dollars to your checkbook, there’s no easy answer as to what you should charge for no-tilling, spraying or other work done in a neighbor’s fields.
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No-Till Expands By 7.1 Million Acres

U.S. cropped acres being no-tilled grew from 20 percent in 2002 to almost 23 percent this year.
While some growers and educators figured the U.S. no-till acreage might have decreased during the past 2 years, it instead turned in an astounding increase of 7.1 million acres. Much of the increase occurred in the Great Plains states where no-till is helping growers make more productive use of limited water.
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What I've Learned from No-Tilling

No-Till Is Good For Everyone!

No-till is now at the point where it not only can improve soil structure and stop erosion, but could also have far-reaching effects on consumer preferences and human health.
One of the first things I like to do when I talk to no-till farmers is to explain why my long title – rhizosphere ecologist – fits right in with what they’re trying to achieve with direct seeding or no-tilling. (The terms are generally interchangeable).
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No-Till Online

What Can No-Tillers Do When Clouds Open Up More Than The Fields?

For starters, they turn to one another and the Farmers' Forum for thoughts on coping with the weather
Water, water everywhere. Or at least a lot of rain to hamper no-tillers across the country. A few of them brought their shared frustrations to Farmers’ Forum, the online bulletin board at www.no-tillfarmer.com, where they found both sympathy and answers. Alas, rain wasn’t the only thing running downhill. So was a planter — sideways — in Pennsylvania. But again, Farmers’ Forum visitors chipped in ideas to resolve the problem. Now we bring all of these ideas to you, just in case it should ever rain a little too much in your fields, too.
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