No-till versus ploughing -- does increased stratification help?

[SilliamWhale]

But why do the downsides have to be counter points to ploughing? The downsides (ie exclusive reliance on herbicide to function at the moment) are downsides in themselves rather than compared to another establishment technique.

Im not interested in comparing to deep ploughing anymore ive done that and its a bit not consistently one or the other profit wise according to the research but it is better for.my.own farm and my.values. Its more important to find out how to improve your system as it stands within your values/ framework etc. I dont go to a bicycle shop to compare a bike performance to a cars iyswim

 

[Feldspar]

This isn't strictly about stratification, but the results Rick Haney has for Gabe Brown's soils are quite astonishing:

http://www.grazeonline.com/canweregeneratesoils

I read this article and want to make this point. You read the most recent debate on climate change that ran to 28 pages, or at least I think you read some of it given I seem to remember you commenting on it. When you read that debate and looked at some of the sources being used to advance the debate on the side of those who think AGW is false, I imagine you thought their reading mainly involves conspiracy and junk science websites. "If only these people would listen to the scientists and experts", is often the thought of those on the other side.

Perhaps you thought, "Of course, if you go to YouTube and type in 'global warming hoax', you're going to find some material that reinforces your preconceived ideas." The same is true of your chosen farming system too. I read that article you quoted alongside some research appearing in an academic journal on roughly the same topic. It wasn't hard for me to decide which most closely approximated the global warming hoax YouTube videos and which most closely resembled referenced, rigorous and dispassionate research that you might expect to see in Nature. I am not saying that your link is as bad as some of those hoax videos; rather, I am saying that the level of supporting evidence, detailed analysis, referencing etc. is not up to the standard of the sort of research that I have been reading.

 

[Feldspar]

But why do the downsides have to be counter points to ploughing? The downsides (ie exclusive reliance on herbicide to function at the moment) are downsides in themselves rather than compared to another establishment technique.

Im not interested in comparing to deep ploughing anymore ive done that and its a bit not consistently one or the other profit wise according to the research but it is better for.my.own farm and my.values. Its more important to find out how to improve your system as it stands within your values/ framework etc. I dont go to a bicycle shop to compare a bike performance to a cars iyswim

I don't quite understand your point. Can you rephrase.

 

[SilliamWhale]

I don't quite understand your point. Can you rephrase.

Well all the guys doing long term no tilling arent so interested to comparing vs ploughing now. Theyre more interested in making no till work better instead because the vs plough data is of no significance

 

[Feldspar]

Well all the guys doing long term no tilling arent so interested to comparing vs ploughing now. Theyre more interested in making no till work better instead because the vs plough data is of no significance

I went to a friend's son's christening last weekend. It's a very evangelical church and I ended up sitting next to a group leader who, as God dictates, started trying to preach the word of God at the end of the service. He didn't seem very keen to compare Christianity to other religions. Instead he was more enthused by explaining how his branch of Christianity was so much better than the others. Some parallels there IMO.

 

[dontknowanything]

I'm sorry, I'm with Louis in the dunces corner on this one. 2 obvious points need to be made here
1. All this talk about yield is so 20th Century. What we modern farmers are keen on is profit. If we are taking a yield hit of 4 to 7% that this paper talks about, then that is easily covered by vastly lower 'fixed' costs
2. These paired studies inevitably end up comparing chalk with cheese, as to keep the researchers happy each side by side plot has to be treated the same and, as we all know, no-tillers don't necessarily want to drill/fertilise/spray at the same time as their 'conventional' neighbours. So a compromise is reached, probably favouring the conventional, as that will be the expected way.

Of course no-till can be bad, but only when it's done wrong

Sorry John, I think you're being blind here. The question was "how could no-till be bad". The answer I (and @Feldspar ) gave were how it could be bad. Neither of us said it is bad, but thinking what you are doing can't possibly have any downsides is incredibly naive. There is always a better way of doing something, and to close your mind off to this possibility is to limit yourself by definition.

 

[dontknowanything]

Thanks for engaging.

Addressing each point in turn. Firstly, on the yield question, I agree that profit is the ultimate guide of performance. Moreover, profit averaged out into the future is even more important for the farmer who intends to stick around. I agree that if your overall costs can be reduced by an amount equal or greater to the equivalent value of the yield loss under no-till then in that year no-till can be at least as profitable.

One point to make here though is about cropping intensity. Whilst you might be able to compete on profit with a crop within a certain year, if in order to achieve that you have to dramatically reduce your cropping intensity (which might be part of the reason for why SOC differences may not be that different between no-till and conventional), your averaged profit over a cycle might end up being less than a conventional system.


On the second point, I don't think it is the case that research between two different systems inevitably ends up comparing chalk and cheese. It may be the case that in some studies the comparison contains a certain degree of incommensurability. However, it isn't a rule that all comparison studies enforce the rule that the only thing that can be changed is the establishment method. Multi-variate analysis and other analytical techniques allow systems to be compared where supposedly best practice is being employed on both sides. This is particularly the case in research into long-term SOC levels -- here the systems can be more easily compared holistically.

I think it is unwarranted to assume that the way the research is conducted will naturally favour cultivation based systems. It's a sort of Trumpian thinking that the system is automatically biased against you. Inevitably there is a distribution of different qualities of no-till from "good" to "bad". But then there will be the same distribution within conventional systems. We all know that ploughing in silly wet conditions is going to cause more damage than ploughing in dry conditions. Therefore, you can equally argue that some comparison studies will have ploughing done badly, which will unfairly bias the result towards no-till. If you considered ploughing done well, maybe in a mixed farming system which incorporates organic manures, you might just find that it performs better than no-till done well.

Don't get me wrong, I am not strongly arguing that no-till systems are less profitable; however, I am arguing against a mindset which refuses to contemplate any possible downsides to one's favoured system. I do think, though, the evidence on carbon sequestration under no-till is shakier than a lot of no-till converts make out.

Re cropping intensity, this is right on the mark. When I was at ORFC there was a German speaker banging on about how Organic wheat yields were now getting up to 5t/ha, and someone had just yielded 10t/ha in Scotland growing Organic winter barley. I felt it was significant that most of the audience lapped this up, even when his next slide showed sample Organic rotations showing wheat being grown one year in 6. So actually taking a full rotation you're actually averaging 5/6ths of a t/ha/yr, compared to let's say 4t/ha/yr in conventional when wheat is grown every other year.

I also agree on your next point, that although reductionist science is very flawed when it comes to agricultural systems, the standard no-tillers' excuse of "the experiment was wrong" every time it's shown to be not-all-that, is boring and predictable.

 

[SilliamWhale]

I went to a friend's son's christening last weekend. It's a very evangelical church and I ended up sitting next to a group leader who, as God dictates, started trying to preach the word of God at the end of the service. He didn't seem very keen to compare Christianity to other religions. Instead he was more enthused by explaining how his branch of Christianity was so much better than the others. Some parallels there IMO.

Well religion by its very nature relies on preaching I suppose unless your a quaker or a jain maybe. But why should he have to compare his religion to another? He isn't conducting an academic excercise he's just saying "this is my chosen path" and decided that this was what he wanted to do, in the same way you can buy a massey or a NH and stick to your path (well sort of because probably more wars are caused by the latter). If you keep comparing then does it mean your forever teetering on the edge of something looking at what ifs?

 

[dontknowanything]

I read this article and want to make this point. You read the most recent debate on climate change that ran to 28 pages, or at least I think you read some of it given I seem to remember you commenting on it. When you read that debate and looked at some of the sources being used to advance the debate on the side of those who think AGW is false, I imagine you thought their reading mainly involves conspiracy and junk science websites. "If only these people would listen to the scientists and experts", is often the thought of those on the other side.

Perhaps you thought, "Of course, if you go to YouTube and type in 'global warming hoax', you're going to find some material that reinforces your preconceived ideas." The same is true of your chosen farming system too. I read that article you quoted alongside some research appearing in an academic journal on roughly the same topic. It wasn't hard for me to decide which most closely approximated the global warming hoax YouTube videos and which most closely resembled referenced, rigorous and dispassionate research that you might expect to see in Nature. I am not saying that your link is as bad as some of those hoax videos; rather, I am saying that the level of supporting evidence, detailed analysis, referencing etc. is not up to the standard of the sort of research that I have been reading.

I hate to keep agreeing with you like this, but...

The climate change analogy is apt here. One of the arguments used there is that the 97% of scientists who believe in human induced climate change are only doing it because their livelihoods and grants depend on it. Well, I don't buy that myself, as I don't think the system is that inelastic. What I do believe is that people who have made themselves famous, and earn significant money from how they tell people their farm works (note here that they say it, it's not a fact), have a very direct conflict of interest that makes them inherently untrustworthy. That's not to say that they are wrong, or intentionally dishonest, but you've got to bear in mind what they have to gain from doing what they do.

Follow the money.

 

[Feldspar]

Well religion by its very nature relies on preaching I suppose unless your a quaker or a jain maybe. But why should he have to compare his religion to another? He isn't conducting an academic excercise he's just saying "this is my chosen path" and decided that this was what he wanted to do, in the same way you can buy a massey or a NH and stick to your path (well sort of because probably more wars are caused by the latter). If you keep comparing then does it mean your forever teetering on the edge of something looking at what ifs?

He was the one trying to convert me to Christianity, so yes he did have to compare his religion to others because that was part of a point I was making to him. My point was that he needed to concede that the existence of multiple incompatible religious beliefs meant that not everyone could be right, which should therefore engender at least a bit of circumspection about the possibility of being mistaken. His response was just to insist on talking about Christianity in isolation which is a complete cop out.

 

[SilliamWhale]

Re cropping intensity, this is right on the mark. When I was at ORFC there was a German speaker banging on about how Organic wheat yields were now getting up to 5t/ha, and someone had just yielded 10t/ha in Scotland growing Organic winter barley. I felt it was significant that most of the audience lapped this up, even when his next slide showed sample Organic rotations showing wheat being grown one year in 6. So actually taking a full rotation you're actually averaging 5/6ths of a t/ha/yr, compared to let's say 4t/ha/yr in conventional when wheat is grown every other year.

I also agree on your next point, that although reductionist science is very flawed when it comes to agricultural systems, the standard no-tillers' excuse of "the experiment was wrong" every time it's shown to be not-all-that, is boring and predictable.

It depends on what you really want to get out of it. If you think its going to save the planet then no it probably will dissapoint. If you think it will give you a very good chance of developing a lower cost crop establishment system with better timeliness, and less potential for soil erosion and more potential for better soil structure, and then combine with a good quality crop rotation then you have a chance or at least a better chance than you may have otherwise of growing decent yielding crops. This doesn't make it a mantra its just about giving yourself a chance to get more from less.

 

[Feldspar]

I hate to keep agreeing with you like this, but...

The climate change analogy is apt here. One of the arguments used there is that the 97% of scientists who believe in human induced climate change are only doing it because their livelihoods and grants depend on it. Well, I don't buy that myself, as I don't think the system is that inelastic. What I do believe is that people who have made themselves famous, and earn significant money from how they tell people their farm works (note here that they say it, it's not a fact), have a very direct conflict of interest that makes them inherently untrustworthy. That's not to say that they are wrong, or intentionally dishonest, but you've got to bear in mind what they have to gain from doing what they do.

Follow the money.

Slightly off-topic: that argument about scientists and their funding always looks a bit silly when the proponents of that argument conveniently forget there's far more money at stake on the other side of the argument. Evidence is difficult to get on this topic, but here's some recent research which at least counters this familiar denier argument: http://www.pnas.org/content/113/1/92.full.

 

[SilliamWhale]

He was the one trying to convert me to Christianity, so yes he did have to compare his religion to others because that was part of a point I was making to him. My point was that he needed to concede that the existence of multiple incompatible religious beliefs meant that not everyone could be right, which should therefore engender at least a bit of circumspection about the possibility of being mistaken. His response was just to insist on talking about Christianity in isolation which is a complete cop out.

Well I sort of agree with you but then again he's on the same plane as a Muslim and a Hindu really - they all agree ultimately in the same god/gods at the end of it all.

 

[Feldspar]

Well I sort of agree with you but then again he's on the same plane as a Muslim and a Hindu really - they all agree ultimately in the same god/gods at the end of it all.

They wouldn't say that. Speak to the branch of the church that I went to the other day and they are very strident in saying that their way is best and that everyone else is wrong.

 

[SilliamWhale]

They wouldn't say that. Speak to the branch of the church that I went to the other day and they are very strident in saying that their way is best and that everyone else is wrong.

I don't think I can answer that because none of this rational to me anyway. But I do celebrate christmas..

 

[martian]

I read this article and want to make this point. You read the most recent debate on climate change that ran to 28 pages, or at least I think you read some of it given I seem to remember you commenting on it. When you read that debate and looked at some of the sources being used to advance the debate on the side of those who think AGW is false, I imagine you thought their reading mainly involves conspiracy and junk science websites. "If only these people would listen to the scientists and experts", is often the thought of those on the other side.

Perhaps you thought, "Of course, if you go to YouTube and type in 'global warming hoax', you're going to find some material that reinforces your preconceived ideas." The same is true of your chosen farming system too. I read that article you quoted alongside some research appearing in an academic journal on roughly the same topic. It wasn't hard for me to decide which most closely approximated the global warming hoax YouTube videos and which most closely resembled referenced, rigorous and dispassionate research that you might expect to see in Nature. I am not saying that your link is as bad as some of those hoax videos; rather, I am saying that the level of supporting evidence, detailed analysis, referencing etc. is not up to the standard of the sort of research that I have been reading.

I must admit that I started reading that thread and lobbed a firecracker in by way of amusing myself, but it soon got very boring as neither side seemed to be listening to the other. I honestly don't know what I feel about global warming. I like the idea of it being a giant conspiracy, but that seems unlikely. My point was that we might as well assume we have a problem with this high level of CO2 and do something about it. Putting carbon into the soil is a win/win situation whatever. There may well be better ways of doing it, but Gabe Brown has undoubtedly found one way, Dave Brandt another and Allan Savory is promoting yet a third which improves productivity, profits and C sequestration. Rick Haney might have put a whole lot of decimal points in the wrong place, but I don't think so.

I'm delighted that you can be bothered to scour the net for research results, but I'm with Will in wanting to refine what we do on this farm and we know the direction we're heading: into the glorious sunlit uplands, the land of milk and honey, no-till farming

 

[martian]

Sorry John, I think you're being blind here. The question was "how could no-till be bad". The answer I (and @Feldspar ) gave were how it could be bad. Neither of us said it is bad, but thinking what you are doing can't possibly have any downsides is incredibly naive. There is always a better way of doing something, and to close your mind off to this possibility is to limit yourself by definition.

Fair enough

Re cropping intensity, this is right on the mark. When I was at ORFC there was a German speaker banging on about how Organic wheat yields were now getting up to 5t/ha, and someone had just yielded 10t/ha in Scotland growing Organic winter barley. I felt it was significant that most of the audience lapped this up, even when his next slide showed sample Organic rotations showing wheat being grown one year in 6. So actually taking a full rotation you're actually averaging 5/6ths of a t/ha/yr, compared to let's say 4t/ha/yr in conventional when wheat is grown every other year.

I agree. It's only sensible to compare the profitability of the whole rotation. Organic and no-till need a much wider rotation than wht/wht/osr, but can still be more profitable. Chalk and cheese again. Incidentally, is it true that this expression comes from the fact that you can't make decent cheese on chalk grassland? Butterfat too low

 

[Feldspar]

I must admit that I started reading that thread and lobbed a firecracker in by way of amusing myself, but it soon got very boring as neither side seemed to be listening to the other. I honestly don't know what I feel about global warming. I like the idea of it being a giant conspiracy, but that seems unlikely. My point was that we might as well assume we have a problem with this high level of CO2 and do something about it. Putting carbon into the soil is a win/win situation whatever. There may well be better ways of doing it, but Gabe Brown has undoubtedly found one way, Dave Brandt another and Allan Savory is promoting yet a third which improves productivity, profits and C sequestration. Rick Haney might have put a whole lot of decimal points in the wrong place, but I don't think so.

I'm delighted that you can be bothered to scour the net for research results, but I'm with Will in wanting to refine what we do on this farm and we know the direction we're heading: into the glorious sunlit uplands, the land of milk and honey, no-till farming

I was just reading a post by @mikep, and to quote his signature, "I'll take unicorns and rainbows over reality anyday."

I admire your pioneering spirit. I think my mentality will probably confine me to the role of early adopter rather than pioneer. I just happen to think knowledge is hard to come by and requires careful and meticulous cultivation (if you'll excuse the pun).

 

[Simon Chiles]

I'm willing to bet that the UK farmer with the highest 5 year yield average in any crop you care to pick is not a no-till farmer. You can say that they're only doing it by mining the soil, but if no-till generates such healthy soils, why do we not see the long term no-tillers performing best?

Long term no tillers are probably limited by their soil type. I've a friend who farms in Lincolnshire who can grow 12.5t/ha average over the whole farm of wheat without even having to try too hard. To be fair though he's not really interested in growing wheat, to him it's a break crop as he's better off growing spuds, daffodil bulbs and vining peas. Neither is he worried about his organic matter of his soil, he's already got more than enough. I often think that if he saw some of the fields we grow crops in he'd question why we even bother.
I think you'll find that most of the long term dd'ers are on some pretty tough to manage soil, when you see someone doing 14 passes to make a seedbed it concentrates the mind.
To get any valid comparison you have to have the same starting point.

One of the biggest sceptics of the system was the old boy who taught me to plough some 40 years ago. He was the sort of man who would walk half way across the field to pick up a fistful of straw that you'd left on the surface and tread it into the furrow. He took great pride in his work and liked everything done properly. You can imagine that dd went against all he believed in and he found it hard to accept. However, just before he died, he said to me that he didn't really understand how dd worked. He said that he couldn't get his head around how fast we could plant and that the seedbeds looked a bl**dy mess yet his yields had improved quite dramatically. He said that whatever it was it was definitely working.

However, I think that we need to accept that dd certainly isn't for everyone and I suspect that there will be a few who give up because they've failed to make it work.

 

[parker]

Long term no tillers are probably limited by their soil type. I've a friend who farms in Lincolnshire who can grow 12.5t/ha average over the whole farm of wheat without even having to try too hard. To be fair though he's not really interested in growing wheat, to him it's a break crop as he's better off growing spuds, daffodil bulbs and vining peas. Neither is he worried about his organic matter of his soil, he's already got more than enough. I often think that if he saw some of the fields we grow crops in he'd question why we even bother.
I think you'll find that most of the long term dd'ers are on some pretty tough to manage soil, when you see someone doing 14 passes to make a seedbed it concentrates the mind.
To get any valid comparison you have to have the same starting point.

One of the biggest sceptics of the system was the old boy who taught me to plough some 40 years ago. He was the sort of man who would walk half way across the field to pick up a fistful of straw that you'd left on the surface and tread it into the furrow. He took great pride in his work and liked everything done properly. You can imagine that dd went against all he believed in and he found it hard to accept. However, just before he died, he said to me that he didn't really understand how dd worked. He said that he couldn't get his head around how fast we could plant and that the seedbeds looked a bl**dy mess yet his yields had improved quite dramatically. He said that whatever it was it was definitely working.

However, I think that we need to accept that dd certainly isn't for everyone and I suspect that there will be a few who give up because they've failed to make it work.[/QUO

It will never be for everybody, I can only speak for my self , when I ploughed I loved every minute of it (and would walk across the field to bury a fist full of straw)straight furrows was the only way for me with all trash totally buried, with level seed beds following and straight drilling with good yields normally to follow , people would ask how I did it , then came direct drilling , improved soil and improved yields people ask how do I do it , I believe the answer is being bothered , being ready to go drilling when conditions become perfect whatever the time of day, with correct machine settings is being bothered , as with every following application its being bothered to get it right, yet nature has been bothered and getting it right long before we got involved which is how soils evolved, all we need to do is work with nature and everything else just falls into place as long as you can be bothered, soil stratification was going along without tillage long before man got involved just fine, in my mind working with nature is the only way.