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Home My WebLink AboutFarming '91, 1991-03-20, Page 8A8. FARMING ’91, WEDNESDAY. MARCH 20. 1991. Farming ’91 Herbicide costs down with no-till Continued from page A6 meriting with no-till they were practicing conventional herbicide uses but over the years the leaders in the field have developed meth ods needed specifically for no-till. The more expensive residual herbi cides aren’t used. Instead, because weeds are treated at a larger stage, contact chemicals can be used that are both less expensive and less dangerous to the environment. Annual weeds aren’t as much a problem as perennials but the weeds seem to grow in patches and can be spot treated. Fertilizer is banded so quantities are reduced. In addition the Shil linglaws make use of manure as much as possible. He has purpose ly gone out and found sources of manure and more than 500 acres of their cropland is fertilized with manure. Crop rotation also helps build the soil. Equal areas of corn, cereal grains, beans (soys and white beans) and forages (red clover for seed and alfalfa for dairy farmers) are grown. The rotation generally has corn seeded into the residue of forage crops (killed off the fall before) to take advantage of the nitrogen put into the soil by the legumes, followed by beans, then cereals, then back to forage. All this has built up the soil and that is an area that is dear to Mr. Shillinglaw’s heart. Besides the economics of no-till his decision to switch over was prompted by his growing conservation concerns. A lot of benefits of the system, he says, aren’t measured in statistics. Less erosion means less soil carried into streams causing pollution. Less herbicide, and types of herbi cide that aren’t as long-lasting mean less damage to the environ ment. The earth worm population on his land is really high, he said. Water infiltration is much greater and the soil is becoming more howick TEL (519) 335-3561 1-800-265-3033 EST. 1873 MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY WROXETER, ONTARIO mellow. There wasn’t a lot of eroded or degraded soil but the potential of all the soil is coming back and there is less variability across the farm. He has also planted windbreaks on his farm to protect the crops. These have encouraged wildlife onto the farm, further promoted by the planting of wildlife cover and feed. He’s not worried about possible damage to the crops from the wildlife at this point although he knows friends in Michigan for whom this has become a problem. "I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it,” he says. No-till tries to duplicate as close to natural conditions as possible. If you want to find the very best soil on your farm, he says, you would look in the fencerows in soil that is undisturbed where the natural cycle of the earth has a chance to operate. Leaving the soil as undis turbed as that is the goal of no-till. The conservation ethic is import ant to our way of life, he says. He notes that throughout history, 26 major civilizations have collapsed because their agricultural produc tion suffered because of soil de gradation. North Americans, he says, have only been farming for 150 years, and only been farming intensively for 50 years, and we’ve used up half our precious topsoil. Because of the technology of today, farmers are able to speed up the loss of soil faster than ever. The lesson is that major civilizations only prosper as long as their agriculture prospers so it’s impor tant to save the soil. Still, for most farmers faced in a harsh economic climate, it’s the short-term monetary benefit of- no-till that is more attractive than worrying about the environment and future generations. There has become tremendous interest in the system because of the economic benefits. Farm machinery dealers are finding interest particularly in no-till drills that allow farmers to sow directly into soybean stubble or corn stocks. Farmers making the switch will find it considerably easier than the pioneers of early last decade. Mr. Shillinglaw joined a group of innovative farmers, researchers and extension workers from Ontario, Michigan and Ohio called the Great Lakes No-Till Discussion Group that met and exchanged experiences and research informa tion. "Once we started getting interaction the information and technological knowledge leap frogged.” he says. Exchanging information, the farmers didn’t have to make all their own mistakes to learn about the system. Locally, Mr. Shillinglaw found support in a breakfast club of farmers interested in experiment ing with the new system. Today all the information from these pio neers has become available for new farmers wanting to get involved. Still "what 1 do on my farm may not work on yours,” he says, "but the principles work on both.” That means, however, that the farmer has to become observant and be willing to adapt. As he recalls of his own beginnings, "50 per cent of the switch was changing the farm er, not changing the farm.” And there’s no end to the changing. Mr. Shillinglaw says he’s constantly trying to fine tune his system, though he doesn’t see any major changes being needed. But for the farmer willing to invest the extra effort to learn how to make a conservation system work, the rewards are there both in money, in the savings on the farm, in time not spent riding a tractor back and forth over the fields so many times, and lastly, but not least, especially for Bruce Shilling law, in the feeling you are helping conserve your land. "My goal is to leave my little corner of the world better than I found it,” he says. SERVICE WITH A SMILE &ew hollaa? 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