- Author: Jeffrey P Mitchell
California's Conservation Agriculture Systems Innovation (CASI) Center, in partnership with Sustainable Conservation and the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, has prepared its survey of tillage management acreage for 2012. This tillage survey was conducted as an ongoing comparison of annual row crop acreage that is farmed under different tillage systems throughout the Central Valley region of California. Over 35 local NRCS, University of California and private sector experts were surveyed and results were compared with 2012 County Agricultural Commissioner cropland acreage reports. Previous surveys have been conducted in 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2010.
Data in this survey were compiled for two general types of reduced tillage systems. Tillage practices such as no-till, strip-till, ridge-till and mulch-till, that leave at least 30% of the residue from previous crops in place on the soil surface are the typical forms of conservation tillage that are recognized throughout the world and that have historically been chronicled as one category of reduced tillage in our survey. In addition to these practices, “minimum tillage” practices that reduce the overall number of tillage passes by at least 40% relative to what was done in the year 2000, are also included in the tally of conservation tillage acreage.
A number of complicating factors, including changes in cropping acreage and rotational crop selections that were being implemented in 2012 as California's drought began to take hold and changes and turnover in the local expert reporters who have provided input for the survey estimates over the years, may be apparent in the 2012 survey results. These methodological challenges notwithstanding, the 2012 survey has been carefully checked and represents a useful view to the ‘big picture' trends that may be occurring in the region and that may warrant more detailed investigations to determine why certain patterns are being noted.
In 2012, conservation tillage systems accounted for about 17% of the total acreage for the crops that were surveyed including silage and grain corn, small grains for hay, silage and grain, tomatoes, cotton, dry beans, and melons throughout the nine-county Central Valley region. This was an increase from about 14% in 2010. Minimum tillage practices were used on about 15% of crop acreage in 2012, a reduction from about 24% in 2010.
The largest change in conservation tillage acreage from 2004 – 2012 is found in the amount of corn silage acreage that uses strip-tillage. In 2004, there were only about 490 acres of summer silage corn using strip-till, while in 2012 over 181,000 acres throughout the San Joaquin Valley region had adopted the use of this form of conservation tillage. Another major trend during this time has occurred with minimum tillage tomato acreage increasing from about 3% in 2004, to about 58% in both 2010 and 2012. Speculation as to why minimum tillage acreage overall tended to decline from 2010 to 2012 may relate to issues with herbicide application practices as well as soil salinity patterns that occur particularly with subsurface drip irrigation that have become concerns for farmers if broadcast, full-area tillage is not performed. A full and detailed report of CASI's tillage acreage survey is available at our website: http://casi.ucanr.edu
Table 1. California conservation tillage acreage survey (2012) for tomatoes, cotton, edible dry beans, silage corn, grain corn, and small grains for grain, hay and silage, CT – conservation tillage, MT – minimum tillage, September 14, 2014 |
||||||
|
>30% residue cover after planting |
>40% reduction in total passes |
<30% residue cover after planting |
Total Acreage |
CT as a % of Total Acreage |
CT and MT as a % of Total Acreage |
|
Conservation Tillage Total |
Minimum Tillage Total |
Conventional Tillage |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
County |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Fresno |
22,317 |
157,162 |
210,410 |
389,889 |
5.72 |
46.03 |
Kern |
2,108 |
18,862 |
171,413 |
192,383 |
1.1 |
10.9 |
Kings |
82,476 |
10,345 |
250,497 |
343,318 |
24.02 |
27.04 |
Madera |
19.330 |
2,708 |
38,562 |
60,600 |
31.9 |
37 |
Merced |
53,012 |
12,027 |
306,540 |
371,579 |
14.27 |
17.5 |
Sacramento |
1,009 |
13,500 |
34,600 |
49,109 |
2.05 |
29.54 |
San Joaquin |
|
38,908 |
258,022 |
296,930 |
0 |
13.1 |
Tulare |
142,826 |
14,766 |
262,639 |
420,230 |
33.99 |
37.5 |
Yolo |
49,260 |
58,983 |
1,976 |
110,219 |
44.69 |
98.21 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Total |
372,337 |
327,261 |
1,544,659 |
2,234,257 |
|
|
Table 2. |
||||||||||||
Year |
Total Acreage |
Tomato Acreage |
Cotton Acreage |
Silage Corn |
||||||||
|
CT |
MT |
CT+MT |
CT |
MT |
CT+MT |
CT |
MT |
CT+MT |
CT |
MT |
CT+MT |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2010 |
14.67 |
24.4 |
38.0 |
4.4 |
58.3 |
62.7 |
7.1 |
16.1 |
23.2 |
24.1 |
10.4 |
34.5 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2012 |
16.67 |
13.6 |
31.3 |
8.8 |
57.9 |
66.7 |
4.8 |
14.8 |
19.5 |
38.4 |
5.8 |
43.0 |
For additional information and of various forms of conservation tillage, please contact Jeff Mitchell at (559) 303-9689 or jpmitchell@ucdavis.edu. For information on the equipment rental program for strip-tillage and silage corn planting, contact Ladi Asgill (209) 604-6554 or lasgill@suscon.org.
- Author: Jeffrey P Mitchell
Recent investigations conducted by UC's Conservation Agriculture Systems Innovation (CASI) Center shed light on opportunities farmers have for cutting production costs in their cropping systems by reducing tillage. Founded in 1998, CASI is a large group of diverse members including UC researchers, farmers, private sector, NRCS and other public agency partners who work together to develop and spread information about production systems alternatives that aim to increase profitability and efficiencies, conserve resources and be readily adaptable to local marketing and environmental conditions.
Citing a number of studies the group has published over the past several years at a recent workgroup meeting in Five Points, Calif., CASI workgroup chair, Jeff Mitchell, summarized the potential savings that can be gained by a variety of reduced tillage approaches as being typically between $50 and $140 per acre per season depending on the particular crop and set of practices or equipment that are used.
“For a number of crops including tomato, cotton, silage corn, sorghum, and sugar beets, that we've run the numbers for, this seems to be the range of savings that can be achieved by using various minimum tillage implements that combine customary tillage operations into fewer passes, or more classic forms of conservation tillage such as strip-tillage or no-tillage," Mitchell said.
CASI Workgroup tomato farmers, Alan Sano, Jesse Sanchez and Steve Fortner of Firebaugh have all seen this range of cost reductions since moving to minimum tillage practices that they couple with subsurface drip irrigation and cover crops when water is available to improve their soil's tilth, water movement and storage.
“Our yields are actually higher now with about four inches less water than when we were furrow irrigating and using conventional tillage,” reports Jesse Sanchez in a recent survey that is available at the CASI website http://casi.ucanr.edu/
Tom Barcellos, a Tipton, Calif., dairy farmer and President of Western United Dairymen, calculates savings of about $70 per acre that he has accomplished with strip-till and no-till silage corn over his former conventional intercrop tillage practices. There are also savings in time as well as wear and tear on equipment that he has achieved since transitioning to these conservation tillage practices in 2003.
Alan Wilcox, another CASI workgroup founding member and minimum tillage equipment entrepreneur in Walnut Grove, Calif. has created a tillage cost calculator tool that he uses to determine savings that may result from reduced pass practices.
“Knowing the true costs of tillage is essential,” Wilcox says, “since tillage is one of the few things in their overall budgets that farmers can control.”
- Author: Jeffrey P Mitchell
Al was born in 1917 in Bakersfield, Calif. As a young boy, he learned, as he says, “That you have to walk the furrow to find out what the ground is like,” and early on he realized that “there was a better way to manage the soil” than was being done.
In the early 1950s, he made the precursors of his patented Shredder Bedder to help potato farmers who needed a way to have cotton roots dislodged and unearthed prior to planting potatoes.
In the late 1950s he had perfected the Shredded Bedder and the potential benefits of this machine for cotton stalk and soil management were quickly shown.
Al's company, Interstate Manufacturing, then went on to build 175 machines that were used throughout the southern San Joaquin Valley and even back at Auburn University in Alabama.
With Lyle Carter, a USDA ARS scientist at the Shafter, Calif., research facility, Al recognized quite early on the importance of trying to leave beds in the same place, and thereby effectively perform zone production.
In 1967, Al responded to a challenge by taking his machine down to Brawley, Calif., where it was compared to standard cotton stalk management approaches and it proved successful. This test subsequently helped alter CDFA's rule for pink bollworm management by acknowledging that a power-driven shredder performed successfully for postharvest cotton management.
Al has met and overcome many challenges in his life as a result of his vision, intellect and innovation.
“It has been a battle,” he says, “since he put his first two pieces of iron together.”
He developed systems that would save, again in his words, "oil, toil, and soil.”
Al has been fighting the battle to develop improved tillage management systems that most of us have only recently begun, for over six decades.
CASI is extremely proud to count Al Ruozi within our ranks and we greatly appreciate his dedication and outstanding accomplishments in the field of conservation tillage.
Congratulations, Al, on your retirement!
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Mitchell, the chair of the UC Conservation Agriculture Systems Innovation Center, made the comment at the 6th World Congress on Conservation Agriculture in Winnipeg, Manitoba, last month.
After attending the congress, Mitchell said he is more strongly convinced that greater efficiencies and brighter economics in California agriculture could be achieved by employing conservation principles.
“Focusing on soil care will improve soil water intake and storage,” he said. “Reducing soil water evaporation can be achieved by preserving surface residues. Together these steps reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions – very important goals.”
The Manitoba congress drew more than 350 participants representing 47 countries. It was co-sponsored by the Conservation Agriculture Systems Alliance, the Conservation Technology Information Center, and the Canadian Soil and Water Conservation Society. California's CASI was represented by Mitchell and Monte Bottens, president of California Ag Solutions of Madera, a consulting and custom fertilizer support company.
Speakers at the conference suggested conservation agriculture principles are “transformative and not merely incremental means for achieving the kinds of change must be made to meet the global challenges of food production and natural resource conservation in the 21st Century,” Mitchell said. Modestly tweaking today's conventional agricultural systems, he said, “is not an option.”
Today conservation agriculture is used on about 11 percent of the world's total arable land. Implementation is increasing at an annual rate of about 7 to 8 million hectares, according to the U.N.'s Food and Agricultural Organization. Nearly half of the world's conservation agriculture acreage is found in the developing world. The South American countries of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, where the movement had its beginnings as a farmer-led process dating back to the mid-1970s, has about 80 percent implementation.
During his keynote address at the conference, David Montgomery, University of Washington professor of geology and author of Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations, issued a “call to action.”
“Global soil degradation,” he said, “is an under-appreciated environmental crisis that occurs because of how we farm. We need to be more creative in terms of how we're intensifying agriculture to feed the post-oil world without cheap, fertilizer-intensive agriculture.”
Congress speaker Dwayne Beck, agronomy professor at South Dakota State University, also sounded an alarm.
“Never in history has mankind knowingly faced this type of impending catastrophe,” Beck said. “It is time to stop doing incremental things and start doing transformative things. You do not cross a chasm in two steps. We need to focus on where we want to be and emphasize systems, not details; actions, not reactions; and commitment, not merely involvement.”
CASI members are working with foundations and granting agencies to better position the organization to support implementation of conservation agriculture in California. For more information, contact Mitchell at (559) 303-9689.
- Author: Jeffrey P Mitchell
Members of Conservation Agriculture Systems Innovation center participated in four national conferences in January and February, 2014. Following are summaries of the events and take-home messages most relevant to improving California farming systems.
Syracuse, N.Y.
Jan. 22, 2014
CASI member Jesse Sanchez of Sano Farms in Firebaugh, Calif., interacted with about 100 vegetable farmers in New York as part of the 2014 Empire State Producers Expo in Syracuse. Jesse was invited to travel to this event, but due to the snow storm that hit the region the day before the conference, he was obliged to conduct his discussion on reduced tillage tomatoes and cover crops in California via SKYPE. According to Carol McNeil, the Cornell University organizer of the event, Jesse's involvement in this session was much appreciated by the New York audience. Congratulations to Jesse Sanchez on this very nice honor!
18th Annual Winter Conference of No-till on the Plains and 2014 AIM (Agriculture's Innovative Minds) Symposium
Back to the Basics – Managing Water and Nutrients
Salina, Kan.
Jan. 28-30, 2014
CASI chair Jeff Mitchell participated in the 18th Annual Winter Conference of No-till on the Plains and 2014 AIM (Agriculture's Innovative Minds) Symposium, which brought together more than 1,400 farmers from states stretching from Colorado in the West to Ohio in the East. No-till on the Plains, Inc. is a 501.c3 non-profit educational organization that works to educate farmers and others on the benefits of continuous no-till farming and other practices that lead to profitable and regenerative farming operations. The association prides itself as a top-notch farmer-to-farmer exchange for practical, reliable information. The learning opportunities afforded by the conference were unparalleled in their effectiveness and quality. Innovative no-till farmers, researchers and leaders from around the U.S. and Canada were on the program. CASI received several quite gracious offers from participating farmers. I heartily encourage CASI members to consider taking part in the annual winter conferences of No-till on the Plains in coming years. For more information, see the conference website at http://www.notill.org.
High Residue Farming Systems in the Irrigated West Conference
Salt Lake City, Utah
February 6-7, 2014
CASI members Michael Crowell, a dairy farmer in Turlock; Dennis Chessman, USDA Natural Resource Conservation Services state agronomist for California; and Jeff Mitchell of UC Davis, were invited to participate in a meeting in early February in Salt Lake City, Utah, on high-residue farming systems. The event included groups of farmers, NRCS conservationists and university representatives from Washington, Oregon, Utah, Idaho, Arizona, New Mexico and California. There was a lively exchange of information on high-residue farming activities used throughout the irrigated western states. Presentations were made by farmers, NRCS and university teams for each state. Joint planning discussions on how to do more to increase education about innovative farming systems were also held. In addition, Marilyn Lockhart of Montana State University gave a seminar on adult learning strategies. Our three CASI representatives at this event will now be working to set up a network of farm demonstration evaluations on high-residue farming systems in California.
National Cover Crops and Soil Health Conference
Omaha, Neb.
February 18-19, 2014
More than 300 farmers, agri-business representatives, USDA-Natural Resource Conservation Services staff, university and government agency people came together in Omaha, Neb., and about 600 connected online to plan how the group can work together to increase cover crop use around the nation from about 2 million acres today to 20 million or more by 2020. The group acknowledged that the many obstacles in the way of reaching the goal – less land available for production, increasingly variable weather, and the need to produce more crops – will require wide adoption new farming practices. Implementation of better soil management will be crucial. Cover cropping is the next most important means to achieving improved, more efficient, biologically active soils. During the conference, a number of very innovative cover crop systems and farmers from around the country were showcased. By any measure, little exists in California's Central Valley today that approaches the level of soil care that these cover crop farming champions are achieving. The valley's soils are not immune to soil degradation and could be improved by paying more attention to the core principles of soil health being promoted by the USDA-NRCS.
The four fundamental principles of this initiative are:
- Minimizing soil disturbance
- Maximizing the diversity of plants in the rotation and using cover crops
- Keeping living roots in the soil as much as possible
- Keeping the soil covered with plants and plant residues at all times
These principles provide a platform for achieving more resilient, more efficient and biologically active soils. While conference participants generally agreed that more research is needed, they also agreed that we now have sufficient information and experience to move forward with practices that improve soil health and resiliency. As Pennsylvania cover crop and no-till farmer Steve Groff put it in his concluding comments at the end of the conference, “It is about economics, but it is more than economics. It is the right thing to do.” That encouragement to move forward in working to improve the health of our soils was a clear, inspiring mandate that came out of the conference. But so was the sober realization that without changing behaviors and having soil health principles more widely adopted, soil improvement will not be achieved. Thus, several sessions during the second day of discussions were dedicated to developing regional action plans for how best to address the challenges of adoption.
Compared to the number of shining examples of the cover crop and soil health farmer champions who were given opportunities to share their innovations at the conference, it is only fair and accurate to say that California has far to go in increasing momentum in soil health. The challenge will be to develop suitable adaptations of the basic principles for California's diverse production environments.
Additional information about the conference is available at the conference website:
http://www.sare.org/Events/National-Conference-on-Cover-Crops-and-Soil-Health