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Erode-block
In a no-till system, crops are planted in fields that have had no, or very little, soil disturbance from the harvest of the prior crop to the planting of the new crop. Rather than preparing the seedbed ahead of time by turning the soil over and further breaking it apart by even more tillage, farmers using a no-till system plant seeds directly into the undisturbed soil. The residue cover helps hold the soil in place, limiting the loss of topsoil through erosion.
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"Before the first Bt corn came along, the only thing that we could do to control corn borer and rootworm was throw an insecticide at them. With Bt we now had a tool in our integrated pest management toolbox that targeted a specific pest and left other insects, especially beneficial ones, alone."
John Obermeyer
Purdue Extension Entomologist |
When soil erodes, precious organic matter, nutrients and agricultural chemicals applied to the field are carried away. That soil sediment often ends up in streams and lakes, harming wildlife and contaminating drinking water.
Thankfully, farm-related soil erosion is decreasing in Indiana because of greater no-till adoption rates by producers. According to the Indiana State Department of Agriculture, at least 40 percent of the soybean acres in 76 of the state’s 92 counties were planted in no-till systems in 2004. That same year, no-till corn was grown on 40 percent or more of the corn acreage in 21 counties. By comparison, in 1990, only three counties reached that level of no-till planting for soybeans and two counties for corn.
The increase in no-till planting reduced soil loss to 3 tons per acre or less in 52 Indiana counties in 2004, meaning that 75 percent of Indiana’s cropland eroded at or below “T”—the tolerable level.
Savings accounts
In Clay County, Mercer and other no-till practitioners are not only saving thousands of tons of soil per year but also cutting a primary production expense.
“No-till corn adoption in Clay County increased from 15 percent to 39 percent between 2003 and 2007 and netted a diesel fuel savings of more than 36,000 gallons,” says Mark Evans, Purdue Extension educator for Clay and Owen counties. “That amounted to more than $81,000 in fuel savings for diesel, which was priced at $2.25 per gallon at that time.”
Like Mercer, Evans preaches conservation tillage everywhere he goes. Over the past few years, the Purdue Extension educator has written newspaper columns on the subject and helped organize meetings and presentations at field days to share information about the no-till system.
“Nearby Putnam County was an early adopter of no-till,” Evans says. “It doesn’t have as good a soil as you would find in Hendricks and Boone counties, yet the five-year- average corn and soybean yields in Putnam are better. It shouldn’t be that way. The difference is, there’s more no-till being done in Putnam.”
One Putnam County no-tiller has witnessed his soil’s organic matter jump from 0.8 percent to 2.6 percent, Evans says. “And 5 percent organic matter is black soil, which is considered highly productive,” he adds.
Mercer’s soil comes in at 2.5 percent organic matter. With all 2,400 acres of his corn, soybeans and wheat in a no-till system, that percentage could climb even higher. “When I started farming this way I thought the soil would get better, and it did,” he says. “It wasn’t because of something that I did, but something that I didn’t do.”
Mercer “didn’t do” tillage so well it earned him the 2005 Indiana Conservation Farmer of the Year Award from Indiana Farm Bureau.
Stroke of gene-ius
Conservation tillage isn’t Mercer’s only agricultural passion. He’s also committed to biotechnology. His crop includes corn genetically enhanced with the insect-fighting Bacillus thuringiensis—or Bt—proteins and Roundup Ready® gene. “I don’t use an insecticide,” he says.
Biotech crops can be grown with fewer chemical applications because the pest control itself is built right into the seed. In cases where applications are still necessary, the genetically modified crops allow farmers to use chemicals that are more environmentally friendly.
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