Farmers examine till, no-till options

7/18/2014 4:00 PM
By Associated Press

BURLEY, Idaho (AP) — To till or not to till? Mini-Cassia farmers are answering that question as more lean toward alternative methods to grow crops.


With "no-till" planting, said Oakley farmer Nick Robinson, a farmer can plant a crop over a previous year's crop without plowing up the ground and overturning it, as is traditional.


"This year we just used our traditional corn planter and went right in and drilled with it, put the pressure down a little harder, and put it right in the ground," said Robinson. "No-till is just going straight through a stubble field and planting right in the stubble."


The no-till approach does more than save time. A previous crop's ground cover helps the new crop flourish by leaving more nutrients in the soil.




In the Mini-Cassia area, farmers have split the difference between both methods. By using a more modest "strip-tilling," farmers can essentially get the best of both worlds.





"For guys working in the sand, it's a heaven-send," said Bowen. "You can go in and plant and not lose your topsoil."



"That worked extremely well," he said. "It's keeping the moisture in the ground, and you can still see the hay between the rows of beans."


"It varies from crop to crop," he said. "With wheat, both no-till and tilling ground yielded about the same. With corn, it's different. You can see a difference in the crop where we've tilled and where we haven't. The corn in the worked ground is taller."

Bowen has spent seven years using the strip-till method, and it's taken time to figure out how to make it work effectively, he said.

"I'm getting there with it. I like it because where you don't till actually retains a lot of moisture," he said. "But you've got to spend some time and figure out how everything works."


Information from: The Times-News,

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