The Benefits of No-Till Farming Practices at Coles Farm LLC Lynchburg College

Abstract Results
Field # Soil Loss in 2008 Soil Loss in 2012 Improvement in Soil Loss 5.8 tons/acre/ year 6.7 tons/acre/year 3.75 tons/acre/year 2.65 tons/acre/year 2.05 tons/acre/year 4.05 tons/acre/year

Emily Cole Harris ENVS 600

No-tillage farming is a system of planting crops into untilled soil by means of opening a narrow slot only wide and deep enough to obtain proper seed coverage. The soil will remain covered with residues from the previous crop grown there, and the new crop will grow up through the residual. All over the world, in almost every country there is evidence of no-tillage farming practices. It is used on small family farms and large scale production farms. The spread of no-tillage systems on more than 274 million acres worldwide shows that is adaptable to all kinds of climates, soils, and cropping conditions. In most cases no tillage farming reduces soil loss, and increases crop yield in comparison to conventional agriculture tillage practices. On my family farm, Cole's Farm LLC, no-tillage farming was adopted 5 years ago and the land has not been tilled since. When this farming practice was adopted the tonnage of soil loss and percent yield per acre was calculated using the Universal Soil Loss Equation, (USLE). This year I will recalculate the tonnage of soil lost due to erosion and recent crop yields to determine if no tillage faming continues to be beneficial to our farm. If no-tillage agriculture methods improve soil retention and Cole's Farm LLC transitions from traditional farming practices to no- tillage then Cole's Farm LLC should see an improvement in soil retention and crop production.

F12 F16

Field # F12

Soil Loss in 2008

Soil Loss in 2012 Improvement in Soil Loss

5.8 tons/acre/ year 3.75 tons/acre/year

2.05 tons/acre/year

F16

6.7 tons/acre/year

2.65 tons/acre/year

4.05 tons/acre/year

Methodology
Implementing the no tillage system of farming requires planning and the farmer must follow certain steps to be successful I have partnered with Ann Evans, a Soil Conservation Technician, from the Virginia National Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). Five years ago, before we began no-till farming, she came to the farm and calculated soil loss per acre and soil quality. The farm was photographed and divided into 19 different fields and acreage was calculated. A field ID and Summary was calculated and prepared for each field, see example. This information was compiled to create a Conservation Plan. The amount of soil lost to erosion was calculated using the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE).The crop yield was determined by calculating the amount of crop harvested in tons per acre.
F16

Conclusions
The tolerable soil loss level is 3 tons/acre/year for a conservation plan. By implementing no-till farming practices and cover crops both fields are now below the tolerable soil loss levels. Crop yields also increased over the 5 year period of using no-till methods. Therefore, Coles Farm LLC did experience an improvement in soil retention and crop production by implementing no-till agriculture.

5 year Follow-up Research

For my follow-up research I choose to focus on two fields that were close but not within the limits of allowable soil loss. According to the recommendation in the conservation plan fields 12 and 16 could be brought into allowable limits by implementing no-till and adding a cover crop. It can take up to 10 years to see the full benefits so these fields should show enough improvement in 5 years to be within the allowable limits. I calculated the soil loss in tons per acre for each field using the USLE.

F12

Delimitation

Our farm is divided into 19 different fields. I chose to focus on the 2 that were most able to benefit from no-till farming practices over a 5year period. Full benefits can be seen at 10- 13 years.