Lesson 3: Practices

Overview

 

In the previous lesson, we discussed soil and testing to help assess your soil building program. Now, we'll move to practical organic soil management during crop tillage and cultivation. You'll also discover the value of planting cover crops and implementing crop rotations.
 
Tillage can be used to manage weeds, incorporate organic amendments and crop residues into your soil and ready the soil for seed establishment. However, too much tillage, or tilling under the wrong conditions, can harm your soil in a number of ways. Even though opening up the space between soil particles for oxygen can stimulate microbial life and increase soil carbon, ripping the lid off your soil can burn up carbon at an alarming rate.
 
Tillage and any wheeled-implement traffic can also cause soil compaction, particularly in clay soils. Loose, uncovered soil is more susceptible to erosion by wind and water.
 
Strip cropping can mitigate soil erosion. Alternating strips of sod crops with row crops in strips perpendicular to the slope slows water movement and has the added benefit of increasing diversity.
 
In organic systems, conserving and increasing soil organic matter (SOM) are keys to a productive system. There are several ways to offset the reduction of SOM from tillage:
•        Adding compost
•        Using cover crops in the rotation
•        Using fast-growing catch crops for soil protection between crops
•        Using longer rotations
•        Using rotational no-till
•        Incorporating several years of sod pasture or hay in rotation
  

 

 

Research

Organic farming is a developing science, one that might someday be considered a real Green Revolution because of emerging evidence of its ability to put the brakes on global warming. Here at the Rodale Institute we’re demonstrating how organically managed soils actually act as carbon sinks, storing carbon in the form of soil organic matter rather than releasing it into the atmosphere as CO2, a major greenhouse gas.