LOST INVESTMENTS
- Originally published in the September, 2005 edition of The Leading Edge Journal of No-Till Agriculture   © 2005, All Rights Reserved by No-Till On The Plains, Inc.

Doug Palen of Glen Elder, KS collected these samples during a rainstorm in Aug. ’05 from a brome waterway where runoff merged from 2 fields—one cropped with full tillage (neighbor’s), the other with low-disturbance no-till for 11 years by Doug (yes, he still has some runoff). Keith Thompson, Joe Swanson, and other producers have collected similar comparisons of runoff, all of which validate what is shown so vividly with the rainfall simulator demos.  In the photo, the dark colored water in the jar on the right is due to soil particles suspended in the runoff. Farmland is a significant investment. Every ton of soil leaving the field diminishes its productivity and the value of that investment.   Not only does the loss of topsoil reduce ability to grow crops, but the taxpayer gets nicked again when the road ditches, culverts, streams, and reservoirs silt up and require clean-out. Because a portion of the soil particles remains suspended for months or years, cities spend more money cleaning the water for domestic usage.   For crop production, both water and soil are limiting factors—   keeping more of the water also lets you keep more of the soil.   Both are accomplished by maintaining sufficient residue cover,  along with not tilling the soil. Good reasons for both the farm operator and the landlord to insist on those methods. (See the Dec. ’03 Leading Edge, where Rolf Derpsch describes the infiltration process.)

No-Till Field
     

Conventional-Till Field