Excerpt
No-till agriculture is the most common method used to control soil erosion on highly erodible lands in agricultural production in the United States. The interrill, rill, and gulley erosion that are common in conventional tillage on slope lands are reduced with no-tillage. No-till has been shown by many studies to significantly reduce the amount of soil erosion, but results for reduction of runoff quantity and water quality vary depending on soils and conditions. In no-till, chemicals are not incorporated and are applied at or near the soil surface in soluble forms that are subject to movement when runoff does occur. The purpose of this article is to introduce gypsum as a viable soil amendment in no-till agriculture to reduce runoff volume and improve the quality of runoff waters, particularly where manure has been surface applied.
Conservation tillage and in particular no-till or closely related variants have generally increased in popularity with farmers for soil and water conservation benefits since the 1970s. With the increased cost of energy for tillage, the acreage of conservation tillage is expected to increase from the present 38% (4.4 × 107 ha [1.09 × 108 ac]) of cropland and in particular with no-till soybeans (Conservation Tillage …
Footnotes
L. Darrell Norton is a research soil scientist at the National Soil Erosion Research Laboratory, USDA Agricultural Research Service, West Lafayette, Indiana.
- © 2008 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
This article requires a subscription to view the full text. If you have a subscription you may use the login form below to view the article. Access to this article can also be purchased.