West of Mpls MN about 50 miles on Hwy 12 | I personally despise how slabby, rough and wavey moldboard plowing makes our variable topography and soils depending on conditions here no matter how "good" of a job of plowing is done. A person can still easily dead furrows in some felids that haven't been moldboard plowed for decades...no matter how many passes a person has run the disk and field cultivator through the field over the years.
Here, moldboard plowing doesn't seem to reduce the organic matter and soil structure doesn't seem to suffer only if there is a pretty good dose of manure applied every year and at least a third of the cropland is rotated to alfalfa.
Here, moldboard plowing has been proved to shift the worst damage causing compaction layer from three to four inches down to six or seven inches, which causes more soil movement overall and more and deeper washouts in our hills.
Here, weed pressure is about the same no matter the tillage system, the thing that changes is the species of weed that is causing the most weed pressure depending on tillage system.
At least that has been what we have personally experienced here since 1908.
With that being typed, I moldboard plowed my first 40 row wide land since the 80s this fall...then I ran the chisel plow over the land twice before the ground froze to level it...I'll save my restored moldboard plowing efforts for the local annual threshing show that is held on much more forgiving sandy ground.
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Moldboard Plowing
