Practical No-Till Farming , livre ebook

Praise for Practical No-Till Farming
Andrew Mefferd s new book is a no-nonsense breakdown of no-till market gardening that gets straight to the point and stays there. Mefferd s a gifted writer who smoothly communicates not only the principles that guide no-till gardening but the technical details in a way that makes you keep reading. Practical No-Till Farming is arguably the most devourable technical manual I ve come across. A great read and an even greater asset to organic flower and vegetable growers everywhere.
- Jesse Frost, author, The Living Soil Handbook
This is a book I wish I had when I was starting out. Even now it helps clarify what the big deal is about no-till, how it s being defined, and how folks are actually making it work.
- Josh Volk, author, Build Your Own Farm Tools and Compact Farms
If you want to start farming but don t think you have enough money for land and machinery, this could be the book for you. If you re thinking about transitioning from conventional tillage to no-till farming, this could be the book for you as well. If you re looking for a practical, down-to-earth book that explains both the whys and hows of no-till market gardening, this definitely is the book for you.
- John Ikerd, Professor Emeritus of Agricultural Economics, University of Missouri-Columbia
PRACTICAL NO-TILL FARMING
PRACTICAL NO-TILL FARMING
A QUICK AND DIRTY GUIDE TO ORGANIC VEGETABLE AND FLOWER GROWING
ANDREW MEFFERD
Copyright 2023 Andrew Mefferd.
All rights reserved.
Cover design by Diane McIntosh. Cover photo: Hillview Farms.
Printed in Canada. First printing November 2022.
Back cover Images: right - Lovin Mama Farm; middle - Hillview Farm;
left - Bare Mountain
Inquiries regarding requests to reprint all or part of Practical No-Till Farming should be addressed to New Society Publishers at the address below.
To order directly from the publishers, order online at www.newsociety.com
Any other inquiries can be directed by mail to:
New Society Publishers
P.O. Box 189, Gabriola Island, BC V0R 1X0, Canada (250) 247-9737
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: Practical no-till farming : a quick and dirty guide to organic vegetable and flower growing / Andrew Mefferd.
Names: Mefferd, Andrew, author.
Description: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20220273766 | Canadiana (ebook) 20220273774 | ISBN 9780865719668 (softcover) | ISBN 9781550927603 (PDF) | ISBN 9781771423564 (EPUB)
Subjects: LCSH: No-tillage. | LCSH: Vegetables-Organic farming. | LCSH: Flowers-Organic farming. | LCSH: Alternative agriculture. | LCSH: Sustainable agriculture. | LCSH: Farms, Small.
Classification: LCC S604 .M45 2022 | DDC 631.5/814-dc23
New Society Publishers mission is to publish books that contribute in fundamental ways to building an ecologically sustainable and just society, and to do so with the least possible impact on the environment, in a manner that models this vision.
Contents
PART 1: THE WHY OF NO-TILL
INTRODUCTION
Who This Book Is For
Tilling Was Once the Only Answer
Enthusiasm and Skepticism for No-Till
Becoming a No-Till Farmer
Defining No-Till: What Counts as Tillage Anyway?
New Adaptation for Old Methods
The Promise of No-Till
THE POWER OF THE SOIL
Putting a Face on the Soil
Soil: Where the Microbe Magic Happens
Taking Care of Our Livestock
Soil Life Drives the Success of No-Till Systems
Soil Testing
Healthy Soil Can Lead to Healthier Farmers
FARM SIZE
Farming as a Career
NO-TILL: A GATEWAY METHOD
Evolution of Your Farm
Small Can Be Beautiful
NO-TILL VS. TILLAGE
Tillage: The Agricultural Reset Button
Tillage: An Ancient Practice We Might Want to Avoid
THE DISADVANTAGES OF TILLING
Breakdown in the Nutrient Cycle
Weeds
Hard Work and Time-Consuming
Physical, Chemical, and Biological Disadvantages
THE ADVANTAGES OF NO-TILL
Advantages for the Environment
Fungus: The Perennial Roots of the Soil
Soil and Water Can Do Their Jobs
Increase in Organic Matter
Advantages for Growers
THE DISADVANTAGES OF NO-TILL
Fields Are Slower to Warm in Spring
Systems Can Take Some Time to Become Established
Some Methods Are Hard to Scale Up
Some Pests Can Flourish in High Residue
Perennial Weeds
PART 2: THE HOW OF NO-TILL
GETTING STARTED: PRINCIPLES, TECHNIQUES, AND TOOLS
Start with a Soil Test
Clearing the Deck: Getting the Soil Ready
Establishing New Fields
Sod Bustin , No-Till Style
Reduce the Weed Seed Bank First
TARPING
Occultation
Solarization
Tarp Timing
Decomposition Rates
IT S ALL ABOUT THE MULCHES
Non-Decomposing Mulches
Applied Organic Mulches
MULCH GROWN IN PLACE
The Roller/Crimper Method
Roller/Crimper Cons
Winter-Killed Cover Mulch Crops
Planting through a Cover Crop Mulch
Which Crops Work Best in the Roller/Crimper System?
GETTING STARTED AND CROPPING STRATEGIES
Composting in Place
Compost as Mulch
Ways to Improve Land and Exhaust the Weed Seed Bank
CROPS TO FOCUS ON
GOING FROM CROP TO CROP
Dealing with Residue
Planting
Flowers in No-Till
CASE STUDY: GROWING HEMP
APPENDIX
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
Land, then, is not merely soil;
it is a fountain of energy flowing through a
circuit of soils, plants, and animals.
- Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac , 1949
PART 1 THE WHY OF NO-TILL
Introduction
B ECAUSE THIS BOOK is meant to be a quick-start guide, I hesitate to put this introduction between you and the practical stuff. However, it just doesn t seem right to put the how of no-till before the why .
But, if you are absolutely itching to get your hands dirty right away, you could skip to Part 2 : The How of No-Till. If you choose to do that, I ll bet that once you get going, you will eventually find yourself wondering about the why that supports the how . If that s the case, you can come back to this section later, when it s of more use to you.
Who This Book Is For
I wrote this book primarily to help people who are interested in no-till but don t know where to start. But it s also for growers who have already started with no-till and are interested in expanding or refining their repertoire of techniques.
Over the past few years, there has been a lot of interest - and a lot written - about no-till. This is a great thing. When I started working on my first no-till farm in 2005, there was very little written information available about the subject. At the time, actually working with farmers who were doing it was almost the only way to learn about no-till.
But, happily, that situation has changed. My first book on no-till, The Organic No-Till Farming Revolution , came out just three years ago, in 2019. Since then, at least five more books about no-till have been published. Many more are sure to come.
Interest in no-till is so strong that I am writing this book to fulfill the need that growers have expressed for a quick-start guide to no-till . Many volumes worth of information can and will be written about the relationship between plants and the life of the soil that will add to our understanding of how no-till works, but you don t need an advanced degree to use these techniques. No-till methods are actually really easy to try. To get started, this may be the only book you ll need.
One thing that s different between now and 20 years ago, when I first got interested in no-till, is that people are much more used to the idea of a no-till farm now. Back then, there were plenty of people who were outright skeptical and laughed at the idea of growing crops without tilling. That s the reason I included a lot of grower interviews in The Organic No-Till Farming Revolution - so people couldn t doubt what no-till farmers were doing and could hear it from the horse s mouth. Now that people are much more used to the idea of a no-till farm, in this book, I will strip the methods down and talk as simply as possible about how to put them into practice.
As someone who wants to see the local food system grow and flourish, in this book I ve focused on methods appropriate for local farmers. However, this is not a book just for already established farmers. I know more than a few farmers who got their start as gardeners, and the ideas in this book can work just as well in a garden as they do on a farm. As well, I very much hope the methods described in this book will inspire many readers to become first-time farmers. So regardless of your scale, good luck reducing or eliminating tillage with these no-till techniques!
Tilling Was Once the Only Answer
Tillage has been a standard in modern agriculture for so long, it s become a paradigm. But what we re learning from scientific research and experimentations on farms is that we don t need to stir the soil on a grand scale with our plows. If we start to think of the life in the soil as our micro livestock - actual living beings down there turning the soil on a micro level for us - we can make a revolutionary change in the paradigm. We can replace the need to plow the soil with natural processes. We ll be helping ourselves if we let the little guys do their work for us. I m pretty sure they d rather do it than us, and the past 20 years worth of experience with no-till systems shows they are up to the task.
Enthusiasm and Skepticism for No-Till
When I was apprenticing on farms around the United States - in Pennsylvania, California, Washington State, Virginia, New York State, and finally Maine - all of the farms I worked for tilled. Mostly by tractor but some by horse, one thing they all had in common was plowing. The only exception to that was the Virginia Tech research farm that I worked on in 2005. Even after working there, when my wife and I went on to start a farm, we tilled - just like most everyone we had worked for.
My whole farming career, I ve been told that tillage was bad. However, much of the time there was