A no-till mystery tale  
Randall Reeder    

This is a different style of article than you would expect to see from an engineer.

We are always encouraged to get right to the point, give conclusions first, don’t keep the audience in suspense. If the reader or listener cannot get a good grasp on the goal of the presenter/writer in the opening moments, the engineer has failed as a good communicator.

So, you have been adequately warned that there is some mystery to follow.

Future of no-till
Research in the following areas will aid in developing techniques to capitalize on the strong points of no-till and overcome any weaknesses.

– Crop residue: a surface cover of plant residue is important. Soil temperature, soil moisture balance, and erosion are influenced by the cover present. Should erosion be significantly decreased by maintaining a surface mulch, crop production is feasible on lands otherwise considered marginal because of erosion hazards. 

– Planting: to achieve a favorable environment for germination, some tillage in the row may be necessary. The optimum width and depth of such a tilled band depends on soil type and surface cover.

– Fertilizer:  practices may need to be changed under non-tilled conditions due to immobility of various elements. Although major problems should not occur, changes in practice may be necessary for the best use of all elements.

– Rotation: the sequence of crops grown without tillage may have a long-term effect on the success of the farming system.

– Insects and Disease: one method of control is plowing under plant residues. With no-till, alternative methods of controlling disease and insect pests include resistant crop varieties and pesticides.

– Pesticides: chemical residues in a no-till grown crop must be carefully determined. Weed populations shift as new herbicides are used. Certain broadleaf weeds, once a problem in corn fields, have been largely replaced with grasses. If weeds are eliminated by no-till production it may be possible to reduce the amount of herbicides used. If resistant species develop, alternative methods of control may be necessary.

– Timing of herbicides: It may be desirable to spray early in the season, even though perennials can be controlled satisfactorily after the crop his been planted.

– Weed population shifts: if weeds are eliminated by no-till crop production, it may be possible to reduce the amount of herbicide used. On the other hand, if resistant species develop, alternate methods for weed control may become necessary.

– Power and labor: No-till provides a significant reduction in the power and time required to establish crops. This method is useful on large acreage using minimum amounts of labor or in timely planting when conventional tillage is delayed by adverse weather. 

Summary
Corn has been successfully grown. The key to success was satisfactory control of weeds. On the average of 23 replicated experiments there was no statistical difference in corn yield between the no-tillage and conventional systems on soils ranging from silt loam to clay.

Recognizable problems with no-till include (a) description of optimum seed environment, (b) development of equipment to produce these conditions, (c) development of herbicides for economical production, and (d) description of the most desirable surface conditions for optimum crop growth and soil and water conservation. Other considerations include fertilizer efficiency, and disease and insect control.

Mystery solved
I have three co-authors for this column: Bill Johnson, an ag engineer; and Glover Triplett and Dave VanDoren, agronomists. All are on the faculty of the OSU Ag. Experiment Station at Wooster. At least they were.

See, almost every word in this column is from a paper those three wrote and presented in 1963. It was published in the 1964 Transactions of the ASAE. The research results are for the years 1960-62. Their insights on the “future” for no-till farming were right on the money.

Average corn yield from this research was 99 bu per acre for no-till, one bushel above the plowed plots. Plant stands were usually between 15,000 and 20,000. The research was done on eight soil types, in at least four locations around Ohio, including Wooster, Hoytville and South Charleston.

You may wonder what herbicides were used. The most successful weed control came from a treatment of 8 lb of dalapon plus 4 lb of amitrole plus 2 lb of atrazine. Yes, that is 14 POUNDS, not ounces or grams. The cost in 1962 was $40! In 1962 you could do a whole lot of tillage for $40.

Triplett-VanDoren No-till Plots
The Wooster plots where this research was started, and still continues, will be renamed to honor the two agronomists during a Midwest conservation tillage conference June 19-20 at OSU-OARDC. Triplett and VanDoren will be there, and maybe Bill Johnson, who spent most of his career at Kansas State U.

Those plots are the longest-running continuous no-tillage research plots in existence. Professor Warren Dick runs the research today.  After 40 years, the results from the Wooster plots, and the plots at Hoytville in NW Ohio, are continuing to produce valuable information to benefit corn/soybean farmers in Ohio and far beyond.

Randall Reeder, associate professor and Extension agricultural engineer, can be reached at 614-292-6648, or reeder.1@osu.edu. This column is provided by the OSU Department of Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering.