Suppose you had asked me whether or not you should rototill or no-till; I would not have hesitated to tell you that no-till is the best, “Period. End of story.”
I was asked that question recently by a reader and a friend again. As I have studied this issue over the years, I have changed my opinion. I have been reading releases about how sterile our soil is and that even the microscopic life in the soil has been seriously damaged.
This is a problem because 59% of all life on our planet can be found in our soil. This life I’m talking about ranges from an insect feeding on the soil surface to a tiny microbe nestled in a soil pore.
Estimates are that 2 million species of arthropods live in the soil, along with far more.
One of my friends said,” If I don’t rototill, I will be overwhelmed with weeds?” The studies that I have read say just the reverse.
I went by my friend who talked to me about the cereal rye he had just overwintered last weekend and noted that there were very few weeds in that field.
Covering crops is an excellent way to manage weeds, as weed seeds don’t find light to germinate. If you till or go no-till, you will discover a new set of weeds in each.
As gardeners, we still face the problem of weeds as we would no-till. What do we do? Our farmer friends use an assortment of chemicals to control their weeds.
As Roundup has been reformulated to be marketed in new ways, there are new problems with superweeds resistant to many of our herbicides. Palmer amaranth is tolerant to glyphosate, 2,4-D, ALS inhibitor herbicides like Imazethapyr, triazines Atrazine, metribuzin, and PPO inhibitors lactofen and Formesafen.
Few options remain as an herbicide for a farmer to use to kill weeds. We have fewer chances to control our weeds as gardeners. If we no-till and use cover crops, we must devise a way to take down the cover crops.
One of the answers for our farmers is to use a crimper roller that breaks down the cover crop spent straw.
In one of the videos recently, I saw a time-lapse recording of two pictures of a pile of leaves on two pieces of ground. One piece of ground looked like the soil was a beige color, and the soil was the same color as the soil nearest the leaves to the bottom of the frame and potentially field soil.
The other piece of ground was different in that the level closest to the leaves was almost black and got progressively lighter as you went closer to the bottom of the frame of the video. The soil levels in both frames were approximately the same height, as were the leaf piles.
This time-lapse video bothered me. As the video progressed on the one side, you saw little white darting light flashes. From what I could see, the light flashes could be some small soil insects that could help break down the soil. I even saw what may have been a worm.
The comparison between the two leaf piles is that this darting white light kept working on the one pile through the entire time-lapse video on only one side. There was no difference in the other video.
What was important for me was that the leaf piled on the side with the darting white light melted down to 1/5 th or less by the time the video was over. What was terrible was that nothing had changed in the leaf pile with the beige soil.
There was no difference between the beginning and the ending frame, even after you could tell that there were day changes between each video that co-occurred.
We are looking at the black-rich soil with soil life and the other that did not. Plant debris left on live soil will break down.
If the leaves or other materials don’t break down, how does this material benefit your garden? I came across this quote from the former “No-Till on the Plains” president.
He said, “The jury may be out on the effects of glyphosate, but the jury has been in for 7000 years on the use of tillage, and they have returned a guilty verdict.
Tillage has been found guilty of ruining every civilization using it to produce food. It has left devastation in its path.” TILLAGE KILLS INSECTS.
We need to be concerned about the beneficial insects in the soil. Drop me an email, and I will send you a few tests.
This has been a concern of mine for over ten years. We don’t know how we are affecting our soil by what we do when we put pesticides, glyphosates, or salt-like fertilizers on the soil, and we don’t know the ultimate results of our actions.
My question to all of us is whether we are helping or harming the soil in our gardens or fields when we use traditional farming or gardening practices in our garden or field or whether it makes any real difference.
If you have no life in the soil, are you doing good or harming your soil? In the long run, we need these microbes to break down the soil to help provide nutrients to all our plants.
If all these creatures are gone, we face a dim future.
Stroll through your garden well and enjoy the fruits of your efforts. Enjoy the leaf colors as long as you can. If you have any gardening questions, drop me an e-mail at ericlarson546@yahoo.com, and I shall do my best to help you with an answer.
You shall find our column on our blog soon: www.ohiohealthyfoodcooperative.org. Thank you for participating in our column.
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