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In dry parts of the world herbicide use can significantly increase yield. Where I live in Australia a lot of broad-acre farming is "no-till". A field is seeded

by nodnyl 9y ago

In dry parts of the world herbicide use can significantly increase yield. Where I live in Australia a lot of broad-acre farming is "no-till". A field is seeded directly into stubble of the previous crop without mechanical tilling or weeding. Avoiding turning the soil retains moisture and stops top-soil blowing away. We recently had a fire come through near where I live and farmers were remarking they "hadn't seen their soil in years", and were concerned about losing the soil and moisture advantage they had gained over the years. Herbicide use is certainly not just a labor saver, it does open up different ways of farming.

mikekchar 9y ago
Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but I think the use of herbicide in no-till farming is to kill the cover crop before you plant. There are several other ways to do it. The way they do it in SE asia is that they grow a cover crop that mats together. You can think of it a bit like a lawn, where the roots and runners of the grass forms a sward. With a knife, you can pull up the mat by hand. This achieves the same result without the herbicide. There is also some research for devices that will work. One way is to disc the cover crop. This is reasonably effective, apparently. Another thing I've seen is a device that kind of rakes the cover crop without disturbing it -- a bit like the manual method. Finally, you don't necessarily have to kill the cover crop, depending on what it is (and depending on your crop). You can disc where you intend to plant, or you can even just drill to plan the seeds. The is apparently very effective in dry soil rice production in the southern US, but I haven't really been following it. Finally, one of the techniques that's popular here in Japan is to grow a clover cover crop in the winter, but then cover it with the stalks of last year's rice. Then when you harvest the rice, you move the decomposing stalks back where you intend to plan and resow clover again. This has the advantage of reducing fertilisation use.

by nodnyl 9y ago

mikekchar 9y ago

Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but I think the use of herbicide in no-till farming is to kill the cover crop before you plant. There are several other ways to do it. The way they do it in SE asia is that they grow a cover crop that mats together. You can think of it a bit like a lawn, where the roots and runners of the grass forms a sward. With a knife, you can pull up the mat by hand. This achieves the same result without the herbicide. There is also some research for devices that will work. One way is to disc the cover crop. This is reasonably effective, apparently. Another thing I've seen is a device that kind of rakes the cover crop without disturbing it -- a bit like the manual method. Finally, you don't necessarily have to kill the cover crop, depending on what it is (and depending on your crop). You can disc where you intend to plant, or you can even just drill to plan the seeds. The is apparently very effective in dry soil rice production in the southern US, but I haven't really been following it. Finally, one of the techniques that's popular here in Japan is to grow a clover cover crop in the winter, but then cover it with the stalks of last year's rice. Then when you harvest the rice, you move the decomposing stalks back where you intend to plan and resow clover again. This has the advantage of reducing fertilisation use.