Farming '90, 1990-03-21, Page 26BIO. FARMING ‘90, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21, 1990.
Worm power helps drainage: conservationist
herbicide costs went up as he tried
to keep weeds from going to seed
but now the costs of herbicide use
are about the same as before,
although with inflation taken into
account they would actually b.e
down. With more people around
with experience in no-till this
increase in herbicide use probably
wouldn’t be necessary now, he
said.
With more crop residue on the
surface, pre-emergent application
has been more difficult so he uses
more post emergent herbicide and
is using a lot less toxic product.
Huge gains were made in equip
ment costs as he held an auction to
get rid of his old equipment. Such
things as a huge 350 h.p.,
four-wheel-drive tractor and a 12-
row planter were sold. Today he
now has two 100-horse and two
smaller tractors to farm 1600 acres
of his own plus 400-500 acres of
custom work. He has saved $29 an
acre in this way, he says.
But the biggest bonus is the
return of the wildlife, he says. A lot
of pheasants now populate his
property and there are a lot of
frustrated hunters in the area
because he won’t allow hunting on
his land. He wants his land as close
to nature as possible.
Bruce Shillinglaw of Londesboro
confirmed the savings in equip
ment costs in his presentation to
the meeting. He has been using
no-till for 14 years now and said his
experience in cost savings has been
exactly the same as that of Mr.
Schneider. He went over the cost of
converting implements for use in
no-till and ridge till systems,
estimating the cost could be an
extra $17,739 for no-till or $28,000
to ridge till but there are cost
savings in other areas.
Herbicide reduce on his farm is
down about 20 per cent, he said.
Labour is reduced. With only about
300 hours a year on his tractor,
equipment replacement costs are
reduced. The only drawback, he
said is that “I’m going to get sick of
that tractor before it’s worn out.”
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Helping hands
A handful of wriggles like this can be one of the best assets a
farmer has, Terry Schneideraleader in the conservation tillage
movement says. He planted earthworms on a farm he was
rehabilitating to try to speed up putting life back into the soil.
EVERYTHING FOR THE DO-IT-
L
Letting nature do the work
through a no-till cropping system
saves both the soil and hard cash,
an Illinois farmer told nearly 200
farmers at a Huron County Soil and
Crop improvement Association
meeting in Brussels March 7.
Terry Schneider, a leading
American proponent of conserva
tion tillage who farms 1600 acres in
Illinois said the changeover to
no-till farming has cut his break
even cost for corn by about 30 cents
a bushel and for soybeans by about
90 cents a bushel.
But most important, he said, was
what is happening to the soil. He
showed slides of his soil before he
made the switch. Cornstalks up to
four years old weren’t decompos
ing in the soil. Now, he said, “the
soil is back alive” and the cause, he
said is the return of the earth
worms. An earthworm population
count on his farm now shows an
average of five nightcrawlers (the
large dew worms) and 10 or 11 red
worms (the smaller earthworms)
per square foot.
These worms, he said, prevent
problems associated with no-till
with the soil not drying out because
of debris left on the surface. Even
though there is five or six inches of
crop residue on the top of his soil
the soil absorbs water so well that
it remains dry, Mr. Schneider said.
The reason is the earth worm holes.
He estimates the large worms
create 180 miles of holes per acre
and the smaller worms create many
more miles of holes to absorb the
water and let the land dry out.
During the dry summer of 1988, he
said, he found plant roots went
down five feet through the middle
of worm holes to seek water.
Despite the drought he still record
ed yields of 58 bushels of corn.
He showed a slide of a rain storm
on the border of his and a
neighbour’s field, showing no sur
face water on his field while the
neighbour’s was flooded and ero
sion was taking place. He had
decided to switch to no till instead
of spending money on building
terraces and dams to stop erosion,
he said. He let the earthworm do
the work for him and they replace
any need for large, systematic
drainage systems.
He says he is so sure of the
benefits of earthworms that he has
taken on a project that makes
others chuckle. He has taken over a
200-acre farm that was so farmed
out some people thought it would
never produce w'ell again. Noting
that it took four years of no-till to
bring his original farm back to a
proper population of earthworms,
he decided to try to speed the
operation by importing earthworms
from Canada and physically plant
ing about 250 earthworms per acre
on the new farm. He knows the soil
on the farm can be rehabilitated
because he checked the soil along
the fencerows of the fields. “If you
want to see w hat 100 per cent no till
will do on your farm, take a look at
your fence rows,” he said. Too
much tillage is the greatest killer of
earthworms”, he said.
On a strictly economic account
ing, Mr. Schneider said the cost of
repairs on farm equipment dropped
from $18 per acre in 1983 before he
made the switch to $18 an acre
now. The consumption of diesel
fuel dropped from 10.5 gal. per
acre in 1981 to 2.4 gal. in 1988
when there was a poor crop and
rose slightly to 2.6 gal. in 1989 with
a normal crop. Labour has been
reduced 60 to 70 per cent.
During the transition period
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