Released: January 15, 2002

Scientist: No-Till’s Biggest Obstacle is ’Mindset’

MANHATTAN, Kan. – A little attitude adjustment is all that’s standing between some U.S. farmers and a way of farming that is truly the only way to have sustainable agriculture, also known as no-till agriculture, according to German-born agronomist Rolf Derpsch.

Derpsch has studied no-till practices since the early 1970s, much of that time in Latin America. Over the years, he’s seen the benefits of no-till practices – soil moisture conservation, reduced topsoil loss, and increased economic returns. Much of his work has been in Paraguay, where 55 percent of cropland is now farmed using no-till practices. In some areas, the percentage is as high as 85 percent.

"I think the greatest obstacle to adoption of no tillage is mindset," he said. "People just stick to their old traditions and don’t change. They are accustomed to plowing the field. Many look at the highest yield, but that’s not always the best [economically]."

The scientist, in Kansas to speak at the No-Till On The Plains Winter Conference Jan. 21-22 in Salina, also visited Kansas State University and Kansas farms.

Derpsch is the senior advisor to the MAG-GTZ Soil Conservation Project – a joint venture between the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock of Paraguay and GTZ-Germany. He has worked with many of the key crops grown in Kansas, including wheat, corn, soybeans and sunflowers, and believes that cover crops are a vital part of a no-till effort.

"I think that the missing element in most parts of the United States in the no-tillage system is the use of cover crops," Derpsch said. "There are a lot of prejudices against cover crops. Some people still think you have to plow them under, and this is absolutely wrong."

Research in Brazil has shown that the soybean yield was increased by as much as 60 percent by adding black oats as a cover crop. "So when seeding wheat and soybeans– two cash crops – we had relatively low soybean yields after wheat, much higher yield after black oats, and despite the fact that we had only one cash crop harvested in one year, the economics of this was much better than having two crops harvested," the scientist said. "I think that people should look more on the economics side."

Derpsch acknowledged that cover crops do take moisture which some Kansans – particularly in drier portions of the state – might see as a drawback. However, proper management can make it work, he said. Grasses, legumes and even sunflowers can be used as cover crops, he said, adding that rye might work well in Kansas. Also white mustard dies once temperatures drop below freezing, so no herbicide is needed to kill it. The farmer is left with a "beautiful" mulch for his primary crop.

Cover crops provide mulch, protect topsoil and can help reduce herbicide usage, he added. Also, once the cover crop’s root system is dead and the primary crop is planted, the cover crop’s root systems provide vertical channels which pave the way for the primary crop’s roots to move down through the soil.

Derpsch believes that financial incentives spent to promote terracing on U.S. farms would be better spent in promoting no-till practices.

Also, while his research trials always include minimum tillage (as well as no-till), no-till is typically the better option, he said.

At 55 percent, Paraguay is the leader in no-till utilization, Derpsch said. No-till is practiced on 45 percent of cropland in Argentina, and 39 percent in Brazil. In the United States, 17.5 percent of cropland is farmed using no-till practices, but Derpsch believes that figure can and should rise.

"I think that if anyone is offered the chance to work less for more money, we’ll take it. It’s environmentally the soundest technology that we have today for farming on bigger areas. It’s the only technology I know that we can practice sustainable agriculture, because when we plow the field, and even sometimes when we do conservation tillage, sometimes we still have too high soil losses," he said.

"As long as we have higher soil losses than natural soil building rates – these are a maximum at one ton per hectare, then I cannot understand how in the United States they come up with allowable soil rates of 11, 12 or more tons per hectare. This is in my view, not sustainable. You cannot do sustainable agriculture losing 11 or more tons of soil each year."

Worldwide, 64 million hectares are being farmed using no-till. Forty-five percent of that land is in Latin America, 39 percent is in the United States and Canada, and 14 percent is in Australia. No-till land makes up just 2 percent of the rest of crop land around the world, including Europe and Africa. A hectare is equivalent to 2.47 acres.

Derpsch acknowledges that farmers new to no-till farming might have to invest in different planting equipment, but he thinks that it’s worth the cost.

"There’s a misconception that in no-tillage, you use no herbicides," Derpsch said. That’s typically not the case. However, it is possible to cut herbicide use by as much as 20 percent over conventional tillage operations, he said.

Farmers in Paraguay use equipment called a "knife roller" to roll the cover crop down, which reduces the need for herbicides, he said.

"We have been able to show in Paraguay that using cover crops and a technique where you harvest and seed another crop immediately after harvest – so you never leave the land in fallow, or if there’s a short period between harvest and seeding that crop – we see a short-term cover crop 55 or 60 or 70 days," he said. "In this system we’ve been able to go three years without using any herbicides at all."

For more information about the No-Till On The Plains Conference, interested persons can visit http://www.notill.org or call (888) 330-5142.

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K-State Research and Extension is a short name for the Kansas State University Agricultural Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension Service, a program designed to generate and distribute useful knowledge for the well-being of Kansans. Supported by county, state, federal and private funds, the program has county Extension offices, experiment fields, area Extension offices and regional research centers statewide. Its headquarters is on the K-State campus, Manhattan.

Story by:
Mary Lou Peter, Communications Specialist
mlpeter@oznet.ksu.edu
K-State Research& Extension News