Soil health and productivity benefits of low-tillage organic systems

Excerpt

“We have very good yield stability. It's generally at or above the county average on corn and beans,” says Ron Rosmann, an organic farmer from Harlan, Iowa, when asked how he would best illustrate the health of his soils after more than a decade in organic production.

Rosmann stopped using pesticides on his 300 ac (121 ha) of row crops in 1983 and converted to ridge-till in 1987. The farm was certified organic in 1994.

“I went organic to survive. To get the profits,” he says. Stewardship and health issues also played a significant part in the decision. He might have converted sooner, but he was initially reluctant to give up synthetic nitrogen to meet organic standards.

Dave Campbell, who raises Indiana Certified Organic row crops on his 224-ac (91-ha) farm in Maple Park, Illinois, has seen similar benefits though he relies more heavily on tillage. Campbell says he “went cold turkey organic” when he took over operation of his wife's family's cash-grain farm in 1988. After growing up on an organic farm in the late 1960s and 1970s and running an organic dairy in Wisconsin during the 1980s, he says, “I'd done it before; I thought why not do …