Interesting in what you say about No Till in you're area Illinois Gleaner. Quite a number of farmers are into NoTill around here in the south east of Oz. Some seem to be doing it quite well but some others aren't doing any better than the more convential guys who do a cultivation or Reduced Till before planting. At a farmer's get together some time ago, where there were some top operators, it was asked how many were doing No Till. Something like well over half put up their hands. Then one of the top guys said, yes, they were into No Till for many years but had found out that after around 7 or 8 years they had to go back to a more convential cultivation for a couple of years before going back to No Till. Their yields just started to drop away on the No till if they did not do this. A local farmer operated research organisation has set up a large trial site where 4 different systems of farming have been running for around 9 years now. This was as a result of the ongoing debate as to which farming system was the most profitable. The farming systems are listed as; 1_ "Standard Practice" for the area. 2 _ "Hungry Sheep" which uses a lot of sheep in the rotations. 3_ "Fuel Burners" rotation. 4 _ "No Till". 5_ "Reduced Till" with some minimal cultivation. Each farming system trial site has champion, one of the best local operators using that particular system who calls the shots for what should be done on the plots and when. Each system has a total of around 13 to 15 acres which is divided into 5 plots of about 2.5 to 3 acres each which are used to rotate crops within that particular system. The NoTill champion was claiming great success in his area but when he got into the area with a lower rainfall [ 13 inches _ year instead of 18 inches _ year ] and harsher soils compared to his own farming area, he came badly unstuck and had to completely modify his system. Economically because of the years needed to recognise the problems in the new environment and the time needed to change his crops, rotations and practises, he finished up a long way behind the other local farming systems and is only just starting to catch up to the economics of the other systems after some 9 years of No Till on his plots. Over the period of the trial he is a long way behind economically. So IG, I believe you are right. There are places where No Till works but there are also a lot of places where it does not work or only works with no advantage over more convential systems. A further problem in Australian No till areas is the selective pressures of the chemical regime on weeds leading to a whole bunch of weeds that are now resistant to nearly All chemicals. In some areas, mostly in the Western Australian grain belt, this resistance now means that around every 5 to 7 years an oat crop is sown and baled to try and reduce the resistant weed numbers down to a level where a grain crop can again be sown and harvested.
