By DOUG GRAVES
Ohio Correspondent

CINCINNATI, Ohio — More than 1,400 farmers and crop managers were registered for late January’s National No-Tillage Conference in Cincinnati. Surprisingly, just 6 percent of those in attendance use continuous no-till – which means there are still many skeptics out in the fields.

“No-till certainly works if you can carry a can-do attitude and you’re willing to take the time to learn from your experiences,” said conference keynote speaker Tom Oswald. “Most people just don’t understand no-till. Once you gain an understanding of no-till farming, you’ll discover things that affect your decision-making in a positive way and you’ll soon be convinced that this tillage method is the way to go.”

Oswald, of Cleghorn, Iowa, has 30 years of farming experience and has persevered the move to continuous no-till since 1999 on most of the farm he manages. A champion of on-farm research, he shared his experiences and knowledge about soils and crop growth from 11 years of trial and error.
“I inherited my love for no-till because my father, who is 82, is a large fan of no-till,” Oswald said. “You must realize that tillage doesn’t always make your life better, but the results are remarkable. Mother Nature is a no-till in itself.”
He had one overall theme to his message: “Stay on the path to no-till and don’t put on those training wheels.” As with any planting venture, Oswald said, there’s planning, implementing, evaluating and adjusting involved. Fear, he adds, is a major obstacle to no-till.

“Most people are simply afraid of no-till and fear taking that first step,” he said. “You simply have to know yourself, go by guiding principles and build your confidence through research, either through studies or what others around you have done.”

Oswald said no-till functions as a conservation program, keeping land in production while providing potentially high yields, all at a relatively low cost.
Fifty years ago, plowing was the tillage of choice. But now no-till is changing the way many farmers manage the land. The benefits of no-till, Oswald said, are many – including increasing wildlife habitats, storing carbon, increasing soil organic matter, improving soil quality, preventing runoff and erosion (cutting it between 85-95 percent), increasing infiltration, conserving soil water and reducing fuel consumption.

“Planting in continuous no-till gets easier every year,” said farmer Bill Richards, who served as chief of the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service and has been farming no-till in central Ohio for more than 40 years. “Water infiltration has increased dramatically, and soil quality has improved beyond our dreams.”

Key to no-till usage, experts at the conference explained, is the use of cover crops.

“If every farmer who grows crops in the U.S. would use no-till and adopt management practices such as crop rotation and planting cover crops, we could sequester about 300 million tons of soil carbon each year,” said Rattan Lal, an Ohio State University soil scientist who studies no-till on a global scale.
“Cover crops have almost a 15:1 carbon-to-nitrogen ratio, essential for maintaining soil quality, and they produce chemicals that are antagonistic to soilborne diseases and pests. A cover crop means there are living roots in the soil more months of the year, which also helps soil quality.”

Experts at the conference agreed that no-till farming is practiced on only 5 percent of all the world’s cultivated cropland. The USDA estimates U.S. farmers use no-till methods on about 25 percent of the cropland at any one time, with only about 6 percent being in continuous no-till.

At the conference, attendees had the opportunity to attend 18 general session presentations, 20 classroom situations and 60 roundtable discussions.