[micah63]

No till drilling is the ultimate solution because you get ultra productive land without disrupting the soil. It's an incredible advancement in industrial tractor PTO accessories.

Another huge win that a lot of people are not aware of is using mobile electric fences to quickly move cows through fields. They eat, poop, stomp and move on. That adds an incredible amount of fertility into the ground without needing fertilizer.

For those interested in industrial production of healthy food with healthy soil (+18 inches of rich organic porous soil with trillions of cool characters, diversity and nutrient sharing super highways), check out "Kiss the Ground" on netflix (great intro to soil), then the "The littlest big farm" on netflix (see a 7 year transformation from barren monoculture hydrophobic dirt to rich soil farming in California), then check out youtube for Gabe Brown (soil expert), Joel Salatin (regenerative mobile cheap farming nut), Richard Perkins (regenerative farming expert), and Allan Savory (holistic management, how animals help soil).

[moremetadata]

> No till drilling is the ultimate solution

What you state isnt far off, as tractors have got bigger so the plough cuts deeper and the soil erosion increases.

When horses pulled ploughs, they didnt cut too deep into the soil so that white root mass you find in soil which hasnt been dug over in years is not far from the surface, but now you have to dig several inches deep before you hit any root mass of sorts, when todays tractors have been over it. Its the root mass which helps reduce the soil erosion, but also have plenty of small ponds and lakes also keep the water table up.

Whats also interesting, there is only one agricultural machinery manufacturer that I know of who is R&D'ing smaller equipment to make into robots, and they are German, in order to tackle the soil erosion, and make their equipment more usable in smaller fields.

Because Japanese food is so expensive partly because of the lack of land, you can be sure its of the highest quality, similar efforts are being seen in the UK to make the food quality higher whilst increasing biodiversity with smaller fields.

The days of stack it high sell cheap are coming to an end, partly because the pollutions levels are so high, and the poor quality food is shortening people's lifespans which is now only just showing up in data, despite retirement ages being raised.

>They eat, poop, stomp and move on. That adds an incredible amount of fertility into the ground without needing fertilizer.

The bacteria levels need to rot the poop down, so you are better off muck spreading with from old piles of poop, just like any compost, than you are from fresh. One of the other things I've seen farmers doing here in the UK, is spreading seaweed on fields to increase certain minerals.

[tharkun__]

    The bacteria levels need to rot the poop down, so you are better off muck spreading with from old piles of poop, just like any compost, than you are from fresh

If I understand you correctly then you are advocating for not letting them poop on the fields?

That would mean not letting them graze on the fields either. So you're back to a barn. With associated problems.

That can also be labor intensive. Now you have to actually muck the barn and compost it all, then spread the compost on the fields.

Or you just let the cows graze, poop and stomp and you do nothing (except move them around from field to field).

I know what I'd do if I had to do all that work.

[mattpallissard]

> as tractors have got bigger so the plough cuts deeper and the soil erosion increases.

The size of your equipment does not dictate the depth you have your drill or planter set to.

> When horses pulled ploughs,they didnt cut too deep into the soil

Yes they did. Plowing completely turns over the top soil.

There are other things at play too like row spacing. We used to plant at 36", eventually we went down to 30", some of our neighbors even went down to 20" or so.

[bryanlarsen]

> What you state isnt far off, as tractors have got bigger so the plough cuts deeper and the soil erosion increases.

Old style moldboard plows drawn by horses or oxen cut about 4-6 inches deep. A modern cultivator is usually set to a depth of about 0.5 - 2 inches.

[jaredhallen]

I expect you're right about the depth of the till, but it has more to do with than just the roots. Healthy soil is a living ecosystem, and tearing it up wreaks havoc on that ecosystem. To deal with that, we apply synthetic nutrients, which do feed the plants in the short term, but the soil continues to degrade over time, requiring ever increasing quantities of chemical inputs. It's not a good situation over the long term, and it doesn't take a super computer to figure that out.

[rumdonut]

I am confused by how this would avert some of the issues described in the article. It describes dustbowl conditions as evaporating water out of the ground. Does no-till drilling solve this?

[micah63]

Healthy soil accepts water and retains it. Soil does not like to be naked, it always tries to cover itself so that it can grow a jungle of underground creatures and nutrients superhighways. Every time you till (cut up the jungle to get rid of weeds and give crops a chance to grow), you complete destroy all organic life! That soil turns to dirt that can’t accept water (drought) and can’t retain it (floods and top soil erotion). No till drills surgically insert seeds so that you can grow diverse crops simultaneously without destroying the underground jungle! Check out Gabe Brown to learn more about no till drill crops.

[rainbowzootsuit]

Thanks for some info to catch up on.

I've seen another step described where you bring in a mobile chicken coop a few days after the cows have departed to eat the insects that arrived to eat the poop.

Also keeping the cows a little while means they eat up all the "weed" plants and not just the tastier stuff —"eat your vegetables" type of thing—while if they free graze they only take the best tasting grasses and move on.

How to green the world's deserts and reverse climate change | Allan Savory (TED talk) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI