Re: Till/noTill (was Composted cow manure/ricenutrientcycles)

From: Steve Diver (steved@NCAT.ORG)
Date: Mon Apr 14 2003 - 12:39:32 EDT


Strip tillage is the other way you can approach low-till vegetable
production. It requires specialized equipment -- a multivator
or strip roto-tiller -- that creates a 6" tilled strip through cover
crops established the previous fall.

Again, achieving excellent mow-kill or mechanical-kill of the
cover crop is important -- as a non-chemical approach -- prior
to crop establishement by direct seeding or transplanting,
otherwise the cover crop will spring back up and compete
with the vegetable crop.

John Luna at Oregon State University has done
field research on strip tillage in the Willamette Valley in
Oregon. This is a region of large-scale vegetable
production.

See:
Integrated Farming Systems - Oregon State University
http://ifs.orst.edu/index.html

The Winter Bulletin for the Organic Farming Research Foundation
has a research report that summarizes Luna's most recent
field research, which looked at cover crops and rotary strip-tillage
in organic vegetable production.

See:
OFRF Information Bulletin | Winter 2003 Number 12
http://www.ofrf.org/publications/news/index.html
http://www.ofrf.org/publications/news/InfoBull12.pdf

An interesting comment was that the 6-inch tilled
strip may not be wide enough, so they will look
at 12-inch tilled strips in the future. This equipment
will also dig deeper. The deeper and wider tillage
will help reduce competition from between-row
vegetation and it will also encourage sufficient
cover crop decomposition and mineralization to
release plant available nutrients for use by the
vegetable crop. Band application of higher
rates of organic fertilizers -- within the tilled
strip -- is another approach that could be beneficial
to vegetable yields.

Secondly, they will look at integration of thermal weed
control methods -- such as flame weeding under an
enclosed hood -- to suppress cover crop re-growth.

Strip tillage is one of the more appealing approaches to
conservation tillage in vegetable production, practically
speaking, since it such a sure-fired way to get the field
prepared. Yet, it does require investment in specialized
rotary strip-tillers which are expensive, so again, its
application is limited to certain farms. If thermal weed
control can be successfully integrated to suppress cover
crops and between-row weeds, it will probably be
adapted much more widely.

Regards,
Steve Diver




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