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[compost_tea] Min. Till/No Till



Poor old Jethro Tull.
I am sure he never said ploughing was the thing to do,especially to the Africans/Asians & S. Americans who used oxen donkeys etc.and a wooden 'ploughs' and still do with the sole object of giving the person planting the ability to cover the seed with soil to enhance germination and hide the seed from birds ants etc. Ploughing did put the previous crops trash and weeds that had grown out of site so the planter,by hand, had a clear soil to place the seed in.This also applied when machines, in some parts of the world, replaced planting by hand.
Thirty /forty years ago people notice that the trash they had ploughed under did not decompose and was partly ploughed up the next year. Minimum till was the pioneered with the aid of the Ag. engineer who started to develope machines to plant into partly weathered and decomposed crop waste. The problem was that volunteer plants and weeds grew in the period between harvesting and next planting which meant more cultivation  to kill these plants and these cultivations had to be repeated to the detriment of the soil structure  and loss of moisture. When a knock down herbicide became available this was applied and so could reduce the number of cultivations,enhance the amount of organic mater on the surface of the soil as in a forest situation and improved the physical properties of the soil and increase yields.
Then no till was introduced but in my experience Min. till is the better of the systems particularly when used with a deep narrow ripper that acted as a tree root allowing water and air to peculate the soil and leaving the crop trash on the surface mixed with a little soil and the 'critters' that would brake it down.
 IMHO it is in this situation that ACT will have its maximum effect on large scale crop production with two soil drenches and as many foliar applications as required dictated by experience in local conditions. All this use of ACT will depend on the likes of the SFW and private individuals who take up the local challenge in providing suitable brewers and the local knowledge in producing the required crop compatible compost to use in the brewers. 
Bill H.

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