Background
Tilling is used to remove weeds, shape the soil into rows for crop plants and furrows for irrigation. This leads to unfavorable effects, like soil compaction; loss of organic matter; degradation of soil aggregates; death or disruption of soil microbes and other organisms including mycorrhiza, arthropods, and earthworms; and soil erosion where topsoil is blown or washed away. No-till farming avoids these effects by excluding the use of tillage. With this way of farming, crop residues or other organic amenities are retained on the soil surface and sowing/fertilizing is done with minimal soil disturbance. Continuous no-till needs to be managed very differently in order to keep or increase yield on the field. Residue, weeds, equipment, crop rotations, water, disease, pests, and fertilizer management are just some of the many details of farming that change when switching to no-till.
The idea of modern no-till started in the 1940s with Edward Faulkner, but it wasn't until the development of several chemicals after WWII that various researchers and farmers started to try out the idea. The first adopters of no-till include Klingman (North Carolina), Edward Faulkner, L.A. Porter (New Zealand), Harry and Lawrence Young (Herndon, Kentucky), the Instituto de Pesquisas Agropecuarias Meridional (1971 in Brazil) with Herbert Bartz.
Read more about this topic: No-till Farming
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