> On Mon, 11 Oct 1999, Lynne Carpenter-Boggs wrote:
>
> > No-till is a wonderful thing, and even with the increased herbicide
> > input it is a much more productive and environment-friendly system
> > than currently practiced in many places.
>
> London replied: "How is increased herbicide use/acre more
> environment-friendly?"
>
> My reply: No-till is not the be all - end all of environmentally sound
> farming. However, it certainly can have tremendous environmental
> benefits, compared to conventional farming (deep plowing, disking,
> cultivating, etc.) Yes, generally more chemical amounts are used.
The conventional farming methods you described are, for the most part,
and in only certain specific situations environmentally unfriendly
and are at worst temporary in nature. Chemical use, worse yet, increased
chemical use is long lasting, semi-permanent and in some cases close
to being permanent when you consider the loss of
plant/animal/microorganism diversity that invariably results. The risk
to human health, farmers, FARM WORKERS, and consumers alike is undeniable
and potentially long-term.
> However, since the killed vegetation reduces soil erosion to near zero
> (major benefit), absorbs chemicals, slows surface water movement,
> reduces fertilizer loss, enhances water movement into the soil profile,
> etc. then there is less chemical running off into surface waters. As
> for chemical leaching into the ground water, that can be a problem with
> some chemicals used in no-till and conventional tillage (atrizine types
> for instance). However, many chemicals do break down while in the soil,
> so as they are moving through the soil they tend to degrade. No-till
> also enhances soil tilth, reduces fossile fuel use (thereby reducing air
> pollution and global warming), lowers labor and equipment costs to the
> farmer, and has been proven to maintain or even increase yields.
>
> No-till farming: Environmental panacea? Nope. Environmentally
> friendly? Yep.
Thanks for the interesting description of (chem no-till but
you haven't convinced me. There are conventional farms in my immediate
neighborhood, one of the best is a dairy farm where the owner spreads ALL
his manure on his land, sheet composts it and tills it (and weeds) under
with a Soil Saver (a chisel plow and a Yeomans (Keyline System) plow
will work as well but both are smaller implements). He uses this tillage
tool exclusively and has very little weed problem, with very little
herbiocide use, and has rich friable loamy soil to be proud of. Of course
if a farmer is trying to get rich farming marginal land he may, unless he
has been enlightened about natural methods (read a little Alan Chadwick
about improving poor land -
http://metalab.unc.edu/london/pc/Alan.Chadwick/), may in desperation
resort to chemical use - but why farm marginal land? The key to weed
control is effective tillage and cover cropping in a system of rotating
fallow land with land in production with grazed land. Initial tillage
with a soil saver could be followed with light weed-removal tillage
followed by 1) cover-crop/till-under-covercrop/plant-cash-crop or
2) cover-crop/let-land-lay-fallow/use-soil-saver/plant-cash-crop.
A system using either of the above methods can be followed by
successive, incremental, plantings of crops that are increasingly
intolerant of competition with other plants, i.e. "weeds". IOW
following 1) or 2) plant lespedeza, rye grain, vetch or any number of
other cover crops; follow these with sudex or milo, canola or hemp,
more rye, tall sweet clover; follow these with soybean and/or millet,
corn, wheat or sesame or barley; followed with a legume soil builder/
hay crop, followed by more grain, beans or vegetables. Some root crops
like mangel, beets or carrots, daikon could be integrated effectively into
this system, possibly heavy seed-bearers and other persistent crops
like tall sweet clover and comfrey could be integrated effectively
without adding to the weedseed bank.
I'll continue to resist sanet-mg being turned into a handy podium
for those inclined to rationalize the use of agrichemicals,
even though the term sustainable agriculture was long ago co-opted by that
crowd. Roundup use=sustainable farming, indeed!
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