How No-Till Changes a Farm

hey nerds farmer Jesse here so our farm and in fact my entire farming education started out in a tillage model uh it was thoughtful tillage of course but I learned to farm doing consistent yearly soil turnovers sometimes twice yearly and sometimes just because the weeds got out of hand so in today's video I'm going to talk about the ways in which reducing and eventually eliminating tillage changed our farm and honestly our farm business and even more honestly my sanity there have been some things that haven't necessarily changed uh we'll get into those too so let's do it [Music] thank you first up weed pressure when you stop turning the soil over regularly with a tiller or disc or whatever and especially when you start to cover this oil with a diversity of mulches you simply see fewer weeds there are several reasons for this first is that the soil is designed or at least set up to constantly be replenishing itself and weeds are one of those mechanisms hi kitty cat well hello good morning what's up when a patch of soil is left bare from say tillage the soil not knowing your own intentions to fill it up with plants that you want will stick something there to cover itself I like to think of weeds as the emergency solar panels that the soil will erect as fast as it possibly can to prevent itself from running out of energy now to mix metaphors oh so I can do that in a YouTube video nice but in the same way that we humans use food for energy so too does the soil and plants generate the food that the soil needs or more specifically soil life needs in the form of carbohydrates formed in photosynthesis these carbohydrates or little molecular bundles of energy become plant roots leaves and little sugary cocktails called exudates that are secreted through the roots and all of that forms eventual food for soil life that can use that energy to proliferate and build soil structure and feed larger and larger soil organisms from the soils perspective it either needs plants growing or mulches to feed on otherwise the soil is going to just consume every last store of energy that it has until the soil precomes practically lifeless and production disappears another reason weeds proliferate in a tillage system is that many like amaranth are very small seeds that don't have the energy to germinate at really deep depths and some may even require sunlight to germinate so effectively they need to be brought to the soil surface to germinate and eventually take over which tillage is masterfully good at doing then if one of these weeds gets fully mature it can unleash thousands upon thousands of seeds on your soil but keeping them buried will prevent the seeds from germinating in the first place also weed seeds struggle to germinate in high carbonate environments like mulches this is why some Growers run into issues of germination for their own crops for the crops that they want when they start planting into deep compost mulches if the compost is too mulchy or hydrophobic hydrophobic just meaning maybe immature or highly carbonaceous compost that repel water anyway if the compost is too multi or hydrophobic the seeds will not have the moisture and soil contact that they need to both germinate and then put a root down like maybe the seed germinates but it doesn't have enough small soil particles or compost particles around to sink its roots into in which case it just dries out and dies foreign [Music] last thing I'll say on Weeds probably is that not tearing up your soil every spring encourages more seed Predators some of those seed Predators may be ants and other insects or Birds but some may also be mice or voles or something along those lines which can be a problem though anecdotally at least we have far fewer rodent issues than we used to when we were at tillage Farm potentially because they are fat and happy on worms and eating the seeds in our hay mulches but I don't know that's hard to say and that won't be the case for everyone every context and pest issue is unique to your farm in your area there may be pests like gophers and deer and others who will not care if you're a tillage farm or a no-tillage operation but do thank you for your plants very polite things these pests now sometimes mulching can also bring in new pests such as slugs and generally these ecological shifts will balance themselves out which is nice to hear a few years down the road but obviously in the moment especially in your first years is not super helpful I did this Pest Management video last week that may be of some help now with the reduction of weed pressure comes a reduction in labor and not just any labor but long tedious cultivation in the hot sun when I first started farming I kind of thought cultivation was farming it felt like the main job every week on the farm was to just stand there with a hoe going between the plants around the plants below the plants and then just doing that back and forth all day long but in order to be a successful farmer or even Gardener your job should be primarily harvesting and planting not fighting weeds when you till however weeds are going to be an issue at least for the first few years while you knock your weed seed bank bath seed bank just being the stored seeds in your soil these days we cultivate only as needed which is not very often depending on how well we set up a given bed not that we don't get weeds every Farm does just our weed pressure does not steal my sleep anymore or keep me farming Until Dark now I will say there our mulches where weeds are an issue like hay for instance brings in a lot of weed seeds but also hay seeds can germinate some grass seeds can germinate right in the hay and work their way down through the hay into the native soil that can be an issue so that takes understanding your mulches a little better and making sure to use them strategically now on our farm cultivation requires just a couple hours every two weeks or so of work at peak season another big shift we've seen on our farm since moving away from tillage is our ability to plant and work it basically any time of the year when we were a tillage farm we had to wait for the soil to become adequately dry in the spring or late winter or after a rain event to work it at all for planting now we just clear crop with knives and replant that bed no matter if it's February or July because we can do it without Machinery Silas tarp can sort of keep the soil dry for you but if you have a high water table and a high rainfall it will remain wet under the tarp as well eliminating tillage and employing mulches ensures the soil is based basically always ready for the next crop there's an economic advantage of course to being ahead of other growers in your production but there is also the organizational advantage to not having to wait for an opportunity to prepare the soil and then planting everything all at once in other words not relying on tillage allows you to spread the workload more evenly because you are not waiting on the weather as much as you would be in a tillage system indeed with both the wood chipped Pathways and the living Pathways we can literally be working in the rain preparing and planting beds if need be though usually we don't have to be working in the rain precisely because we are able to spread out the workload another way in which our farm has changed is that I'm almost always the last grower in the area to realize our area is in a drought the mulches and general soil management help to retain moisture for longer than the soil ever did for me in a tillage system now of course a lot of that depends on soil organic matter and the mulch that I've applied in the first one or even three seasons as your soil builds up its infrastructure soil organic matter and soil Aggregates Etc you will still feel droughts but over time that issue becomes more and more manageable slash less and less noticeable we are not entirely a dry Farm but we do very little irrigating Beyond misting our lettuce for heat and watering in things like carrots of course I will readily admit that our ability to partially dry Farm is due to being in Kentucky Zone 6B where we are semi-subtropical and get like 50 inches of rain per year and part of that is just due to our good soil management when that rain is not coming and it's hot and or windy we are covered both literally and what's the other one metaphysically I know that because I've farmed this area in a tillage system and droughts are much harsher plus you have to give everything significantly more space between crops than we do now in order to have reliable production or you have to irrigate extensively another thing that has changed for us is that pests and disease pressure is way down some of that is logical or at least obvious for instance tomato plants are less likely kitty cat don't do it here over here some of that is logical or at least obvious for instance tomato plants are less likely to deal with Leaf blights early on and other diseases if rain is not splashing soil onto the bottom leaves the other part of that is that the soil is just healthier and happier healthy happy soil leads to healthy happy plants what's happening is that the proverbial City below the surface is able to rebuild itself it fills itself with the diversity of residents microbes primarily who have a vested interest in protecting your crops they ward off pathogens and pests because that protects them and their food source again I'm not saying no-till practices will solve every disease and pest issue you have we still get disease pests and weed issues sometimes but what I will say is no-till practices will not allow pests or diseases to be your primary obstacle to running a successful business or garden if done well they will give you some time to rest that's been another huge shift for us rest I start every Farm day between 7 30 and 8 AM and end every day like eight hours later which includes a day nap I am not out cultivating or seeding Until Dark to beat the rain or get caught up seven days a week like I used to be I'm resting or playing soccer with the kids or watching the bear on Hulu which coming from the restaurant industry that show is so accurate it's anxiety inducing like I'm like afraid my chef is gonna throw a cutting board at me I don't even have a chef anymore to be sure during peak season I'm still working six days a week for about three months um then the rest of the year it's like five days or sometimes fewer uh the nature of farming we call it summertime makes it really hard to level that load but even that leveling could be achieved less so by soil practices as much by business management I.E selling more in the winter so you don't have to do as much in the summer but reducing the workload has been directly proportional to my enjoyment of farming and my own health when we were a tillage farm I could not see the longevity of this business at all it was bound to wear me down eventually oh speaking of wearing down that was probably the worst segue in my YouTube history erosion is another issue I didn't mention when discussing the soil but erosion has subsided as well when you don't have a bunch of loose bare soil around and you at least cover the bare soil that you do have with mulches it's not going to blow or wash away at least not nearly to the level it will if it's uncovered will the compost or mulches sometimes blow or wash away in heavy rain events yeah absolutely but those can be easily replaced unlike the soil because rebuilding soil infrastructure is a much slower task I also like that I'm not caked in mud through any part of the season because the soil is covered and the pathways are either mulched or Alive well not covered in mud at least in the garden when you have kids they will ensure there is mud somewhere but anyway I think that's it for now let me know how no-till has or hasn't changed your farm or garden and I think I'm going to wrap it up there like this video If you like this video if you are not subscribed to this channel make sure to hit the Subscribe button and if you are subscribed you're awesome to support more videos and the forthcoming series of farm videos shot by my partner at notelgros.com Jackson roulette which you will enjoy soon you can pick up a copy of the living soil handbook or a hat or other merch at notelgros.com become a patron at patreon.com Growers or just hit that super thanks button super thanks for watching we'll see you later bye [Music] thanks okay come back kitty cat [Music]

Channel: No-Till Growers

Views: 45,505

Keywords: compost, compost making, composting, improving compost, regenerative, agriculture, small scale, no till, no dig, farming, gardening., pests, garden, bugs, bug free, flea beetle, soil health, cucumber beetle, squash bug, horn worm, armyworm, cut worms, damage, no tillage, transition, organic, living soil

Id: hNyu4_RWGZo

Length: 12min 43sec (763 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 02 2023