What is in this article?:
- No-till switch made for economic reasons
- Residue is key
- “I started no-till not to save the world but to save me.”
- Residue is the heart of no-till production.
- Residue also protects the soil.
More About:
RESIDUE is the heart and soul of no-till farming, say speakers at the recent no-till Oklahoma Conference.
When Venita, Oklahoma. farmer Jay Franklin switched to no-till farming back in the 1980s, he had no grandiose visions of making significant contributions to soil and water conservation.
“I was broke,” Franklin said as a featured speaker at the recent No-till Oklahoma Conference in Norman. “I started no-till not to save the world but to save me. I’m beginning my 28thconsecutive year in no-till farming. That’s a fact. The rest of what I say is just opinion.”
No-till, one of his opinions implies, is reacting to the environment. “Management is reacting to a set of circumstances,” he said. That’s how he got started in no-till in the first place, reacting to circumstances that no longer worked economically on his farm.
“With no-till, we often first look for something we can hang onto (from the previous system).” For Franklin, that may have been a no-till cultivator, which he thinks is a bit of an oxymoron. “It was a crutch,” he said. “I eliminated it.”
