Re: No-till gardening

Richard Starkeson wrote:
> 
> Rebecca Lance wrote:
> 
> > Two years ago, my husband and I bought a 5 acre parcel in the Sierra
> > foothills.  It consists of red adobe clay  . . .
> 
> > I amended the areas I wanted to set up as immediate garden beds, and layed
> > chips over those I planned to till up in the future.
> >
> > The beds I amended are still struggling.    The areas I laid chips over, (and
> > some of these were horrible) have been completely transformed. The soil is
> > now darker and looser in color for several feet down.
> 
> Rebecca, did you keep the chips you piled on top of the soil moist?  (it being
> very dry in the foothills except in winter).
> 
> Well, this is another testimonial for no-till.  I'm still a bit skeptical, or
> at least impatient, and don't want to have to wait until the amendment breaks
> down before using the area.  So far I have used material that is very well
> broken down before adding it to the soil, and I only have a small patch, so the
> labor is not that much.   I have obtained totally usable soil that way, almost
> instantly.  I'd still be tempted to compost the added material, and then dig it
> in anyway.  I am  tempted to try no-till on a test plot on a friend's land -
> much the same climate as yours.

Hi Richard
I was just tidying up my mail file and came across this posting of yours
from late last year. Even at this stage I feel I could make a couple of
useful comments. 

One of he nice things about the no-till method is that you usually do
not have to wait until the amendment breaks down to use the area. Many
people put down the amendment layer (Chips, straw, fallen leaves or any
other not yet rotted organic matter) and then simply add a layer of
fully matured compost to the surface in which to plant. There was an
Australian, Esther Denes, many years ago who built most successful
gardens on pads of alfalfa hay, straw and some manure. On top she put
not a continuous layer of compost, but simply a pad wherever she was
putting a plant in. In this way she grew a great variety of vegetables
every year and even took prizes at local shows. By the end of the season
she would I am sure have had a really good layer of amended soil where
the organic matter had been piled. Many people on the organic list, to
which I also belong, use very similar methods with equal success. I
doubt, of course, one would need to go to such an elaborate method more
than once with any particular piece of soil.

If you are aiming to apply just a finished compost you will still get
better results if you make it a surface application rather than digging
it in (notice how Rebecca found her non-tilled beds improved quicker
than the tilled ones), but since it contains live organisms it really
needs to be protected from dessication by a  cover of mulch such as
straw, leaves or (best of all in my opinion ) a couple of inches of lawn
mowings. Digging, because it disturbs the soil structure and
organization inevitably slows down the integration of the new orgainc
matter. Nature is actually set up to deal with OM applied to the surface
and it is remarkable how soon the material will be incorporated and how
well things will grow.

One thing no-till gardeners have found is how little material is needed
to keep a live soil healthy and productive. In most cases an annual
application to the surface of 1" of compost is adequate to maintain good
growth. This is all I use in my food garden (fruit trees and all) apart
from the rhubarb, which gets a light dressing of manure pellets as well.
In the ornamental garden I don't even use made compost for most areas,
just putting on an organic mulch such as chippings from time to time.
The only plants receiving star treatment are greedy feeders like roses
which receive both compost and manure pellets annually. 

> I have been very intrigued by this no-till approach, and after reading Moira's
> posts, especially about the Israel farm tests, can see how the technique could
> be a useful one.  If it works, as it seems to have for you, then it seems like
> a good method.  I wonder if it could ever be applied to commercial scale
> farming, however.  Getting out the handy spreadsheet program, it took but a few
> minutes to calculate that to apply an 8" layer of organic material (say manure)
> to a farm of 1000 acres (a standard size farm in California (and in the US
> midwest, where I am from), would take slightly over 822,000 cubic meters of
> manure.....

I am no farmer, but I do know that  organic farmers already managing to
build and maintain fertilty with the materials available and without
crippling themselves financially. One thing about your calculations. I
think your proposed annual dressing is far too high and wonder where you
got the figure of 8" from. As with chemical fertilizers it is possible
to put on more amendment than the soil can deal with and the excess will
simply leach away.

In fact soils with the proper organization need very little added each
year to keep them happy, and by mowing down and leaving crop residues
(and weeds) and also perhaps adding some extra bulky organic matter in
the form of cover and green manure crops produced in situ the soil's
organic matter can be quite easily maintained at a sufficient level. As
to the major nutrients such as potassium, phosphorus calcium and
magnesium, if these are present in the soil or underlying rock, soil
organisms are very good at extracting them. In fact when soils which
have been chemically farmed are re-enlivened very often phosphate in
particular which has become unavailable and is lying uselessly in the
soil will be brought back into use by microbial action. It is rare for
most of these elements to be totally unavailable, but if any are
genuinely in short supply there are amendments such as rock dusts which
will give a long-lasting reserve for the organisms to draw on as
necessary and in a form which is not easily leached out of the soil.

I have not yet mentioned nitrogen, which is often used to excess by
non-organic farmers, leading to unbalanced growth and encouraging pest
and disease attacks. Usually there is plenty for growth in the
combination of what comes from green or animal manure plus what several
different sorts of n-fixing bacteria take out of the air. In places
where there is a lot of lightening this also adds a good deal to the
soil nitrogen!! If there should be a sudden shortage manure or compost
"tea" could be sprayed on for a quick boost.

Moira
-- 
Tony & Moira Ryan <theryans@xtra.co.nz>
Wainuiomata, New Zealand. (on the "Ring of Fire" in the SW Pacific).
Lat. 41:16S Long. 174:58E. Climate: Mediterranean/Temperate
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