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Colby, Kansas | Yes, it's just as you guys describe, the concept of a dust mulch, to break the paths for capillary flow. But, we also need to remember that's a two edged sword, those same pathways also contribute to improved infiltration when we get precipitation.
On the "occasional tillage" study. Early on in the study, 1-2 use of the sweeps in the rotation (ahead of drilling wheat) did not show a detriment. At the same time from our long term (est. 1991) studies at Tribune we know that a full reduced-till system has a huge negative impact on all phases of the rotation compared to no-till, e.g. we see significant reduction of sorghum yields in a wheat-sorghum-fallow rotation, even though all the tillage is ahead of the wheat. it will be interesting what this fall brings, this summer's wheat started to show a potential hit from the occasional tillage. This would not surprise me, it took several years before the benefits of no-till became apparent, no reason to believe it might not take several years to reverse it.
Here is an approx. 1 minute video I did the other day on the long-term tillage study. This year marks the 30th sorghum crop off of it. I hope we can find a way to keep these long-term studies going.
https://twitter.com/LucasAHaag/status/1302053007241228289?s=20
Lucas
Edited by LHaag 9/20/2020 22:25
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How Tillage and Crop Residue Affect Irrigation Requirements
