Blowing dust from summer fallow is a major soil loss and air quality concern in winter wheat (Triricum aesrivum L.) production areas of the inland Pacific Northwest (PNW). The objective of our 3-yr onfarm study in a 286-mm precipitation zone in eastern Washington was to determine the effects of tillage mulch depth during fallow on surface soil roughness, residue retention, seed-zone water stora...

No-till acreage has increased in recent years, but many farmers alternate no-till with other tillage practices, limiting public and private benefits from sustained no-till adoption. Revealed preference data are used in an ordered logit regression analysis to determine the effect of soil characteristics, climate, regions, farm characteristics, and producer demographics on producers’ choices to u...

Introduction ............................................................................................................................2 Organic Farming & the Tillage Dilemma .........................................................................3 Mulch Tillage .........................................................................................................................5 Ridge Ti...

Soil microorganisms are important for climate regulation as well as for plant nutrition. In agricultural soils the microorganisms are affected by management choices, like which type of tillage that is used. Moldboard plowing, the most common tillage practice, increases mineralization which leads to soil organic carbon (SOC) loss, and may thus reduce soil quality. Conservation tillage practices ...

Methods In 2013, ISU FARM conducted two trials in Pottawattamie County that investigated the effect of various tillage systems on soybean grain yield. In Trial 1, a fall vertical tillage system and a fall disking were compared with a no-till system. In Trial 2, a fall vertical tillage system was compared with no-till. Vertical tillage systems are marketed as systems that lightly till the soil w...

Introduction ............................................................................................................................2 Organic Farming & the Tillage Dilemma .........................................................................3 Mulch Tillage .........................................................................................................................5 Ridge Ti...

No-tillage cultivation offers significant advantages over con­ ventional tillage in terms of water, energy, and particularly soil conservation (Francis et al., 1987). However, continuous no-tillage farming on sandy Ultisols may lead to high bulk density that has a pronounced effect on soil strength due to traffic compaction and lack of plowing (NeSmith et al., 1987). This increase in soil stren...

Microbial diversity can be used to assess the impact of agricultural practices on the long-term sustainability of cropping systems. The aim of this study was to investigate changes in soil bacterial diversity as a result of the impact of different soil tillage and crop rotation systems in an oxisol of southern Brazil. Bacterial diversity was examined in the 010 cm layer in two field experiments...

An experiment with five different tillage systems and their influence on fuel consumption, labour requirement and yield of tested crops was carried out on Albic Luvisol in northwest Slavonia in the period of 1996.-2000. The compared tillage systems were: 1. conventional tillage system (CT), 2. reduced tillage system (RT), 3. conservation tillage system I (CP), 4. conservation tillage system II ...