No‐Tillage Crop Production: A Revolution in Agriculture!

Abstract

For thousands of years, agriculture and tillage were considered synonymous. It was simply not thought possible to grow crops without first tilling the soil before planting and for weed control. The advent of modern herbicides permitted no‐tillage (NT) to be developed and practiced on actual working family farms. No‐tillage is generally defined as planting crops in unprepared soil with at least 30% mulch cover. Adoption of NT after its successful demonstration in the 1950s was slow. However, with better planters, herbicides, and accumulated experience, NT began to be widely adopted in the 1980s in the United States and then in Australia, South America, and Canada. Today, approximately 23% of the total cropland in the United States is planted using NT. No‐tillage has revolutionized agricultural systems because it allows individual producers to manage greater amounts of land with reduced energy, labor, and machinery inputs. At the same time, NT is a very effective erosion control measure and improves water and fertilizer use efficiency so that many crops yield better under NT than under tilled systems. Tillage, like crops, can be rotated but the benefits of NT are most likely to be realized with continuous application. We review some of the early work that led to the development of NT and how NT impacts the crop, soil, hydrology, and farm economics. While highly sustainable, there are still many challenges that remain for researchers to solve so the benefits of NT can be realized on expanded land area and for more crops, worldwide.

Nonhybrid Progeny from Crosses of Dioecious Amaranths: Implications for Gene-Flow Research

“…The development and wide use of glyphosate-resistant crops has facilitated the adoption of conservation tillage practices in the southeast U.S. (Givens et al 2009;Price et al 2011) providing advantages that include fewer trips across the field, reduced soil erosion, greater water infiltration, reduced herbicide loss through runoff and greater carbon accretion (Causarano et al 2006;Potter et al 2004;Triplett and Dick 2008). Between 1994 and 2008, conservation tillage increased 49% for soybean and 85% for cotton ).…”

Legume, cropping intensity, and N-fertilization effects on soil attributes and processes from an eight-year-old semiarid wheat system

“…Longer-term studies suggest that N-benefits to wheat may be realized only after multiple years of legumes in rotation (Campbell et al 1992;Zentner et al 2004;Walley et al 2007;Allen et al 2011). This delayed response may be a reality of cool, waterlimited conditions in the NGP leading to low annual legume biomass contributions, slow breakdown of residues, and subsequent slow release of available N (Janzen et al 1990;Bremer and van Kessel 1992;Beckie et al 1997), especially in no-till systems (Schoenau and Campbell 1996;Triplett and Dick 2008). A lack of immediate benefits is potentially discouraging to producers expecting N fertilizer-type responses from legumes (O'Dea et al 2013) while a more reasonable expectation may be a gradual buildup of the soil N pool (Ladd et al 1981;Janzen et al 1990).…”

Importance of diet in the growth, survivorship and reproduction of the no-tillage pest Armadillidium vulgare (Crustacea: Isopoda)

“…In conservation-tillage systems, litter and soil organic matter tend to concentrate in the upper 5 cm layer of soil (Dominguez et al 2005). The litter layer is a ver y important factor in ameliorating soil temperature and moisture extremes (Cox et al 1990, Dominguez et al 2005, Triplett & Dick 2008, which provides a more stable environment for soil-and litterdwelling invertebrates (Stinner & House 1990). Thus, under no-tillage systems Armadillidium vulgare (Latreille, 1884) (Crustacea: Isopoda) has found an adequate environment for its development and reproduction and it has become one of the most impor tant pests in soybean, sunflower and oil seed rape crops under that tillage system (Saluso 2004, Mastronardi 2006.…”