Carbon Dioxide

[Feldspar]

I'll concede that there are lots of different ways of farming which describe themselves as no-till and a lot of them, like the GM soya/corn systems popular over the pond, won't be particularly good at sequestrating carbon. I suspect that a lot of the studies which show no benefit either focus on these or are looking at short-term bursts of no-till in a tillage regime. Having seen with my own eyes dark, carbon-rich lovely crumbly soil on no-till farms around the world, next to their neighbours pale and lifeless ploughed ground, I know what is possible, whatever 'the science' says. I don't think I'm picking bits of research that chime with my desires so much as suspecting that a lot of the research has done its own picking to come up with the results it wants. This is making me sound like a Trump voter...too bad, too too bad

But you are right to say that we can't say 'no-till good', even if there's no doubt that ploughing is bad...

Sorry, but your assumptions are incorrect. There is a lot of suspecting going on in the above post without any apparent sign of having actually read the sort of studies that the suspecting is aimed at. There have been plenty of long-term studies, and they also investigate residue removal and cover crops.

I'm afraid that your experiences of seeing these lovely no-till soils are probably excellent examples of what Kahneman would call confirmation bias and WYSIATI (What You See Is All There Is). Seeing a much higher level of OM in the top of no-till soils compared the "pale and lifeless ploughed ground" is entirely consistent with the evidence. No-till soils stratify with more SOM in the top layer, but much less than ploughed ground lower down. What you see is not all there is. To start saying that you suspect (without any presented evidence) that researchers are biased because they don't chime with your beliefs is unworthy of your intellect, and I need hardly add that it is the classic tactic of climate change deniers. I'm afraid this is too bad! On this specific topic, it is far from clear that ploughing is bad even if it has other disadvantages (soil erosion being probably the main one).

I sincerely recommend that you read the attached paper in full. It's done over 41 years with different rotations, with sampling that corrects for bulk density and at a decent depth, with residue removal and without and so on. In short, it addresses pretty much all the putative flaws in the research that you have cast aspersions over. The only thing that I would like to know from this research is what no-till drill was used, but if a Simtech counts as a no-till drill, then I'm not expecting that the answer will invalidate all of this research.

 

[martian]

Sorry, but your assumptions are incorrect. There is a lot of suspecting going on in the above post without any apparent sign of having actually read the sort of studies that the suspecting is aimed at. There have been plenty of long-term studies, and they also investigate residue removal and cover crops.

I'm afraid that your experiences of seeing these lovely no-till soils are probably excellent examples of what Kahneman would call confirmation bias and WYSIATI (What You See Is All There Is). Seeing a much higher level of OM in the top of no-till soils compared the "pale and lifeless ploughed ground" is entirely consistent with the evidence. No-till soils stratify with more SOM in the top layer, but much less than ploughed ground lower down. What you see is not all there is. To start saying that you suspect (without any presented evidence) that researchers are biased because they don't chime with your beliefs is unworthy of your intellect, and I need hardly add that it is the classic tactic of climate change deniers. I'm afraid this is too bad! On this specific topic, it is far from clear that ploughing is bad even if it has other disadvantages (soil erosion being probably the main one).

I sincerely recommend that you read the attached paper in full. It's done over 41 years with different rotations, with sampling that corrects for bulk density and at a decent depth, with residue removal and without and so on. In short, it addresses pretty much all the putative flaws in the research that you have cast aspersions over. The only thing that I would like to know from this research is what no-till drill was used, but if a Simtech counts as a no-till drill, then I'm not expecting that the answer will invalidate all of this research.

Next you'll be telling me that Father Christmas doesn't exist. I can tell you now that I saw him at work (with my own eyes) last night, so don't try that stunt...

Many thanks for holiday reading, I look forward to it. Having dipped in, my first reaction is that it confirms my bias...I will give it my full attention though. It is too important a subject to joke about. We must accept that soil can sequestrate Carbon (otherwise the French 0.4% initiative looks a bit silly), it's just a question of how.

Happy Christmas

 

[Richard III]

Unfortunately @Feldspar shows that it is not as simple as stopping cultivating to start sequestering carbon, but as a 'true believer', I still think No Till will be part of the answer.

My personal opinion is that anecic worms are an important part of the jigsaw of creating a system that will build SOM. Their action of continually bringing soil up prevents too much stratification and they will help create O.M. lower down. Obviously they need plenty of food left on the surface and not have their homes destroyed every year to do their job well. Unfortunately I'm not aware of any science that shows this increases SOM, so this just remains an opinion I guess.

The picture below shows what anecic worms can do, this shows about 1m of my soil profile, taken after 7 years of No Till.

Another important piece of the jigsaw could be soil dwelling fungi. It would appear that fungi are better at converting carbon sources into stable soil carbon. If this is correct, we need to improve the fungal/bacterial ratio of our soil and not cultivating and leaving trash on the surface is an important part of the way this could be achieved IMO.

However despite my beliefs (I too have seen Santa), I do agree with @Feldspar that science needs to show that a system will deliver and actually remove some of that CO2 from the atmosphere for us. More research needed and quickly!

 

[bactosoil]

Having read the link from #fieldspar and other similar documents I cannot help feel they are worthless , not in the regard to the science they report
( and not questioning that at all, though it does use the word results 'suggest' rather that results'are' more than once or twice ) but the lack of context they have to the active,passive or dormant bacterial populations the soils contain zonally within each testing period as well as information on the fungal populations too .You may have half a field that is ploughed and the other half zero tilled over many years that report similar SOM , the first half may have reduced OM due to the tillage process and biological activity , the second half may have similar levels of OM caused by enhanced bacterial levels .While both results maybe the same the way they got to the same point varies, and reduced or zero till could be the first step to increasing OM( but not in its self the solution)
, the second step will be understanding the biology in far more real time scenarios (bacteria populations can spike hugely in less than 20 minutes ) being able to retard bacteria that has an over active appetite for carbon is an interesting solution .The trouble surely is that there are so many variables for solutions , answers are only relevant when all influencers are quantified and taken into account .
20 years ago the thought of bacteria and fungi communicating over some distance through quorum sensing was almost unheard of , and measuring the speed of bacteria moving was challenging ( a fast bacterium in the right conditions can move at the blistering speed of up to 1 m in 83 hours ).The next period of soil research must take into account all factors to provide more definitive results .

 

[Simon C]

When the conversations comes up about how to sequester carbon into the soil, I always say that first you need to stop loosing it. Two things release C into the atmosphere from the soil, cultivations and nitrogen applications, whether animal or Haber Bosch. The trouble with the paper on 41 years of no-till is that there is no mention of the many different ways it can be carried out , as @martian said, corn/soya bears no resemblance to conservation ag, regen ag , or what ever you want to call it, that we have been developing in just the last few years. The science is out of date.

Eric Toensmeier is the best authority on carbon sequestration that I have come across. I went to hear him talk in London last year and subsequently read his book- the Carbon Farming Solution. http://carbonfarmingsolution.com/ He studied just about every farming system in the world and has rated them in terms of their C sequestration capabilities. Most farming world wide is carbon negative, that includes conventional arable and high intensive grassland. On average, organic and no-till are pretty well equal and just into positive, ploughing and N inputs are both detrimental to the same degree. Mob stocking is a lot better, being "organic" and no-till together, but if you really want to lock away carbon, you have to grow trees and then either leave them growing, ie not burn them, or use the wood for building permanent houses and stuff.

The report does seem to agree that no-till does build C in the soil, all be it by a small amount but then goes on to say that they found this increase was then lost during 4 consecutive wet years. It then makes the wrong assumption that because no-till land becomes anaerobic in wet conditions, it has no chance of making any long term increases. Of course we know that when things go a bit wrong, drainage problems or being in the field when we shouldn't, it is possible for the soil to go anaerobic, but on the whole when done right, no-till soils are freer draining and more moisture consistent than cultivated land.

Can I just refer to the photo again in this thread-
https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/how-about-this-for-soil-building.195708/
I was as surprised as anyone to see this, not suffering from Kahneman confirmation bias, honest. A picture says a thousand words and it is clear carbon is increasing in my system, there is a degree of OM stratification, the layer is now 4 inches and growing, but as in @Richard III's photo, worms and roots are creating it throughout the soil profile as well. I think that because of my use of what I call low input crops, or low and zero N requiring crops, in the rotation, I am half way to being comparable to Teonsmeier's Mob Stocking sequestration levels.

 

[bactosoil]

When the conversations comes up about how to sequester carbon into the soil, I always say that first you need to stop loosing it. Two things release C into the atmosphere from the soil, cultivations and nitrogen applications, whether animal or Haber Bosch.

Even before a nitrogen application is made (from memory 10 tonnes of gas are used for every 1 tonne of production) C02 emissions are high , without a stable biological environment the applied nitrogen will be used/depleted to a extent by bacteria , towards the end of their preferred diet list will be carbon that creates a double whammy .
Many of the suggested practises by the likes Eric Toensmeier and others make , contribute to biological stability in soils that helps create the effects they see and document . Forests and soil roughly have the same carbon holding capacity and while agroforestry is very relevant ,biological stability of soil is the first place to start .
While increasing C in the soil using best practise is what we should all strive to , creating and maintaining the biological ratios could lead on to being able to apply C to our soils without it being vaporised .Further advances in technical biochars that have been made with specific pore sizes will not only provide specific refuges for beneficial bacteria but also when applied in stable soils could become predominately locked away .When looking at zonal differences in soil profiles taking #SimonC 's 60cm soil profile in a previous post there could easily be 16 zonally different layers that makes it a challenge creating balanced biological layers

 

[Simon C]

Even before a nitrogen application is made (from memory 10 tonnes of gas are used for every 1 tonne of production) C02 emissions are high , without a stable biological environment the applied nitrogen will be used/depleted to a extent by bacteria , towards the end of their preferred diet list will be carbon that creates a double whammy .
Many of the suggested practises by the likes Eric Toensmeier and others make , contribute to biological stability in soils that helps create the effects they see and document . Forests and soil roughly have the same carbon holding capacity and while agroforestry is very relevant ,biological stability of soil is the first place to start .
While increasing C in the soil using best practise is what we should all strive to , creating and maintaining the biological ratios could lead on to being able to apply C to our soils without it being vaporised .Further advances in technical biochars that have been made with specific pore sizes will not only provide specific refuges for beneficial bacteria but also when applied in stable soils could become predominately locked away .When looking at zonal differences in soil profiles taking #SimonC 's 60cm soil profile in a previous post there could easily be 16 zonally different layers that makes it a challenge creating balanced biological layers

Yes, obviously if you want to worry about atmospheric CO2 increases, then the manufacturing process is causing a double whammy. My main interest, however is finding ways to make the soil more fertile. I have recently come to realise that all this Carbon sequestration is using up an enormous amount of Nitrogen, whether this N would be otherwise available to my plants, I don't know, but I like to think that this system as a whole is operating at a much higher efficiency than the usual quoted 40%. I also think that we can't expect to achieve record breaking yields at the same time as laying down C in the soil. Conventional farmers are using up nutrients from mineralised OM and artificial fertilisers to achieve their yields, where as we are paying the soil back as well as producing a crop.

Organic farmers have a different take on this, they grow fertility building leys for 3 or 4 years, laying down organic matter and building nutrients in the soil; and then put a plough in and release it back to their crops over the arable part of their rotation. The lengths of the two parts of this rotation determines whether they are carbon positive of negative, for example, a two year ley and then five years arable and they would be seriously depleting their soil, but a five year ley and 3 of 4 years crops and OM would be increasing over the long term.

The trouble with no-till farming is that we never cash in the our bank savings, they are there for the next guy. Ok if he is your son or daughter but very hard on a short term tenant. I bet if for the last five years of my farming life, I went out and cultivated the whole farm up, getting deeper and deeper each time, I could grow bumper crops without any inputs at all.

 

[Richard III]

Organic farmers have a different take on this, they grow fertility building leys for 3 or 4 years, laying down organic matter and building nutrients in the soil; and then put a plough in and release it back to their crops over the arable part of their rotation. The lengths of the two parts of this rotation determines whether they are carbon positive of negative, for example, a two year ley and then five years arable and they would be seriously depleting their soil, but a five year ley and 3 of 4 years crops and OM would be increasing over the long term.

Fine if you can use the fertility building phases for producing animal products, but there is just not the demand for everyone to do that. Developing conservation agriculture and then using some areas for wild flowers, trees, or what ever is a better model for the future IMHO.

The trouble with no-till farming is that we never cash in the our bank savings, they are there for the next guy. Ok if he is your son or daughter but very hard on a short term tenant. I bet if for the last five years of my farming life, I went out and cultivated the whole farm up, getting deeper and deeper each time, I could grow bumper crops without any inputs at all.

It would be a fair guess that when I'm finished here, the farm will be deep ploughed and planted with maize for the local A.D. or a nearby mega dairy farm - progress.

 

[martian]

I hope @Richard III and @Simon C are both wrong to worry that their N is being tied up until some future oaf ploughs the land up. Wasn't there a Rolf Harris record about it? Tie me nitrogen, up sport...plough me ley when I'm dead, Fred... etc etc.

My hope is to get to somewhere like where Dave Brandt is after 30+ years of continuous no-till and multi-species cover-crops. His soil is 8+% OM and he doesn't need fertilisers at all and he outyields his neighbours in Caroll Ohio. That's when you cash in. Nice little pension pot.

 

[Simon C]

I hope @Richard III and @Simon C are both wrong to worry that their N is being tied up until some future oaf ploughs the land up. Wasn't there a Rolf Harris record about it? Tie me nitrogen, up sport...plough me ley when I'm dead, Fred... etc etc.

My hope is to get to somewhere like where Dave Brandt is after 30+ years of continuous no-till and multi-species cover-crops. His soil is 8+% OM and he doesn't need fertilisers at all and he outyields his neighbours in Caroll Ohio. That's when you cash in. Nice little pension pot.

Well I've got to 6.5% OM but 30 years from the start takes me into my seventies. If I'm fit enough and all I have to do by then is drilling and combining and nothing in between, I suppose it will provide a nice pension but really the benefits will be there for the next guy.

 

[Dead Rabbits]

Well I've got to 6.5% OM but 30 years from the start takes me into my seventies. If I'm fit enough and all I have to do by then is drilling and combining and nothing in between, I suppose it will provide a nice pension but really the benefits will be there for the next guy.

I would hope we are all farming for the next generation don't you?

 

[Simon C]

I would hope we are all farming for the next generation don't you?

You would hope so, unfortunately though, most are not even though they think they are.

 

[martian]

Here's a nice little song

I'm hoping you'll all have learnt the words by the time Groundswell comes along and we can have a jolly sing-a-long

 

[martian]

It turns out that carbon dioxide is something of a red-herring...water has far more influence on global weather and having a healthy carbon rich soil with plants growing in it will put a brake on climate change. Or so says Walter Jehne in this fascinating (if a bit unedited) video:

It is two hours long, but far more gripping than anything on tv

 

[martian]

It turns out CO2 is something of a red-herring...the real driver for climate change is water as Walter Jehne points out in this completely gripping 2 hour video (it badly needs editing, but that gives you time to think about what he's saying).

The long and short is that it's down to us farmers to sort it all out