No-till farming in the U.S. would sequester 300 million lbs of CO2 per yr -

JohnWxy

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Fri May-09-08 02:58 PM
Original message

No-till farming in the U.S. would sequester 300 million lbs of CO2 per yr -

http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/notill.htm

"Lal and his colleagues estimate that no-till farming is practiced on only 5 percent of all the world's cultivated cropland. Farmers in the United States use no-till methods on 37 percent of the nation's cropland, which results in saving an estimated 60 million metric tons of soil CO2 annually."

"If every farmer who grows crops in the United States 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 Lal, who is also a professor of soil science at Ohio State.

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LaurenG

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Fri May-09-08 03:03 PM
Response to Original message

1. I never even heard of "no till farming"

I didn't realize any of the detrimental things about farming that were mentioned in your article.

Thanks for the education.

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alittlelark

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Fri May-09-08 07:53 PM
Response to Reply #1

4. Look into permaculture or sustainable agriculture

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture

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enough

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Fri May-09-08 03:07 PM
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2. Around here, no-till is done by spraying the field with herbicide first, each time you seed.

I don't know if there's another way to do it. That's a lot of herbicide.

But it's true, the soil-conservation benefits are major.

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femmedem

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Fri May-09-08 07:37 PM
Response to Reply #2

3. You don't need herbicide if you use heavy mulch and some patience.

You compost in place, and plant directly into the compost. Ruth Stout wrote some excellent books about it. Because the method involves so little physical labor, she was able to continue gardening with this method into her nineties.

Here's one link to an article about her and the no-till method.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Organic-Gardening/2004-02-01/Ruth-Stouts-System.aspx

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enough

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Sat May-10-08 07:56 AM
Response to Reply #3

5. I'm a great admirer of Ruth Stout and have follower her methods for decades.

Edited on Sat May-10-08 08:08 AM by enough

In my own gardening I haven't plowed or tilled anything for thirty years (or used fertilizers, pesticides or herbicides). But Ruth Stout is writing about gardening, not agriculture. The scale makes a significant difference. I'm wondering what the options are for the large scale.

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femmedem

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Sat May-10-08 08:25 PM
Response to Reply #5

9. Maybe scale is part of our problem.

Maybe large scale agribusiness isn't sustainable, when what we need are more smaller scale farms and home gardens.

You are probably familiar with Wendell Berry? He doesn't farm no-till, but he advocates using horses rather than a tractor, and argues that not only is it better for the planet, but also better for the farmer, who can avoid going into major debt by not buying expensive equipment.

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newfie11

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Sat May-10-08 08:40 PM
Response to Reply #9

10. I have 4 horses and a mule for sale!!

Guarantees you never to run out of fertilizer.

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kristopher

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Sat May-10-08 08:43 PM
Response to Reply #10

11. In the right location that is a great way to go.

What does it cost to keep 1 horse, about $100/month?

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JohnWxy

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Sat May-10-08 11:19 AM
Response to Reply #3

6. It's my understanding that a lot less N fertilizer is needed too.

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JohnWxy

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Sat May-10-08 01:09 PM
Response to Reply #2

7. I posted this so that those who think "modern agricultural methods" will doom the earth

might realize that people have the capacity to learn and thereby the option to change.

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enough

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Sat May-10-08 03:12 PM
Response to Reply #7

8. I agree that this is an incredibly important issue. Glad to see your posts here

on the subject. I wasn't meaning to suggest that there is no future in no-till because it's currently done in tandem with herbicide in some areas. Just that this is a complex balancing act for farmers. I actually think the high price of oil is going to promote new thinking in many areas of agriculture.

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