What?!!?This isnt new.
Generally the soil can go through a more anaerobic stage to start with but if this theory was the case unequivocally then we sgould be ploughing grass every year to reduce nitrous oxide emissions.
Bit of a straw man really.
What?!!?
Are you still in the land of nod?
There are 2 sides to everything, and unintended consequences.
eg environmental cost of making electric cars, neonics, etc etc.
Quite, I’ve seen horrendous soils before going into no till, trying to make these go straight into that system results in even worse soilI'm sure it wasn't a case of lets DD for 2 years and measure the NO2.
There are 2 sides to every tale, including conservation agriculture. There's one or 2 on here that don't see that, or if they see it they won't acknowledge it.
As usual its the transition from till to no till that is the problem, not the end result.
I'm sure it wasn't a case of lets DD for 2 years and measure the NO2.
There are 2 sides to every tale, including conservation agriculture. There's one or 2 on here that don't see that, or if they see it they won't acknowledge it.
As usual its the transition from till to no till that is the problem, not the end result.
I'm sure it wasn't a case of lets DD for 2 years and measure the NO2.
There are 2 sides to every tale, including conservation agriculture. There's one or 2 on here that don't see that, or if they see it they won't acknowledge it.
As usual its the transition from till to no till that is the problem, not the end result.
Don’t we want the OM to be in the top layer around the rhizospehere of the plant anyway?To be honest we don't know where the data is from. I havent read it all or the sources.
Its not that there are "two sides" so much as understanding what is really happening.
N20 will increase in more anaerobic soils. That is the case whether the soil is no tilled, tilled or grass etc. I would wager the more N that is put on the more potential there is for N20 emissions. In fact I don't even know if there are N20 emissions from legumes or not - surely there are.
Consider ths scenario: If two farmers grew a crop of spring barley side by side and farmer A decides to leave his all winter before ploughing and seeding spring rape and farmer B decides to drag his no till drill through and plant winter rape is farmer B emitting more N2o than farmer A?
Scenario 2 - The whole of the growing season they both churn out decent crops. Everyone happy. Both don't think they have compaction etc. This time farmer A decides to fully invert tillages and plant winter wheat but then flooded out, farmer B got coronavirus at Groundswell and couldn't harvest his OSR until september and decides to leave a stubble and then plants spring wheat instead.
The point is N20 will fluctuate within both those fields all the time. Its too complicated to say no till = more N20.
The other part of the article which is odd is the comparing carbon:
There is a higher concentration of OM in the top 10cm of the no till field but levels drop after that. But then says there is more carbon in the ploughed when you bury the residue under 20cm! So its an admission that the top 5-10cm is where you build the carbon! Naturally there is going to be less OM the lower down the soil profile you go if carbon gets built at the interface between soil life and the sun.
Honestly saying there is more carbon 20cm down when you physically plough residue it down is like me ploughing in a crop of wheat the day before harvest and saying "look, this wheat can grow underground as well"!
Organic farming is the right model for uk agriculture. Chemical's are on the way out/ grossly over priced, N fertiliser fixed with fossil fuel is on the way out, trans Atlantic trade deals are on the way. If we are to produce local food for local people we must convince the government to support this vision or watch production be exported to places where land is much cheaper and the environmental costs are out of sight. Unfortunately as capitalists, farmers both tillers and notillers cannot see passed the end of their noses and continue to argue about rearranging chairs on the deck of the titanic. Good luck with that!!
Don’t we want the OM to be in the top layer around the rhizospehere of the plant anyway?
Organic farming is a marketing tool. A hybrid of current conventional and organic should be the aim. Both systems currently have major downfalls. If everyone was organic there would be no premium just loads of extra cost on machinery, fuel and labour.Organic farming is the right model for uk agriculture. Chemical's are on the way out/ grossly over priced, N fertiliser fixed with fossil fuel is on the way out, trans Atlantic trade deals are on the way. If we are to produce local food for local people we must convince the government to support this vision or watch production be exported to places where land is much cheaper and the environmental costs are out of sight. Unfortunately as capitalists, farmers both tillers and notillers cannot see passed the end of their noses and continue to argue about rearranging chairs on the deck of the titanic. Good luck with that!!