ZERO TILL: MY THOUGHTS

By Joe Black

I grew up in the Berwick area in the north central part of North Dakota. My father farmed about 1,000 acres of mostly sandy loam soil which he pony drilled every year. Often the land started to blow during springs work. I recall staying home from school many days to help him spread straw on the land to try to stop the erosion of the top soil. I remember times when the wind was so strong even the straw blew away with topsoil. Sometimes it blew so hard you couldn't see another person working in the same field as you were.

One evening when I was about nine years old he came into the house for supper after taking care of the horses, tired and unhappy, and said to my mother, "There has to be a better way than this!" If he were here today and could see the way we farm with zero till farming, he would be happy and I know he would say, "That's the way to go."

In those days they threshed the grain and had a straw pile in each field. In the winter the farm animals ate the straw and chaff in the straw pile. In the spring Dad would burn the residue left there before he worked the fields. We had to further work the straw apart and spread it over a larger area so we could get the plow to go through it. In the fall at harvest it was always best part of the field. I used to think, "Why can't the rest of the field be as good as this?" I believe with zero tilling the fields, you are leaving more of this residue on the land to help make the soil stay in better condition.

In 1951 I bought my farm at Knox. The previous owner had plowed the fields that fall. We moved in October and the winter following had little snow. The land blew every time it was windy. I milked cows then, so each day I cleaned the barn and spread it on the bad spots. It helped to contain the erosion.

Some of the farm has erodible land which had blown during the thirties and left sand ridges which were almost as high as the fences. I tried strip farming, planted trees in shelter belts, in single rows, and summer fallowed alternate strips, yet the hills and higher areas continued to blow. I started farming with a pony drill, then tried using a cultivator with the drill behind it, still it blew. The yield was low, the best yield I could get was from 12-18 bushels per acre. I also had trouble with quackgrass. I would summer fallow it, but that didn't seem to help.

I went to the soil conservation service to see what I could do to make the land more profitable. They suggested I try zero till and I signed up for a three year trial. They helped finance the changes. I rented a nine inch space Nobel hoe drill to seed corn that spring and winter wheat that summer. The soil conservationist came to advise me on methods to use. That fall the custom silage operator couldn't believe I had just seeded it and not even cultivated it during the summer.

I used two methods to seed my winter wheat that summer. I used the hoe drill and I rented the soil district's 1206 Haybuster. In the spring after the wheat was up I had to spray where the hoe drill was used, but not the Haybuster. I believe it was because of too much land disturbance. I was able to provide my yield so I could prove my yield at the A.S.C.S. office at 32 bushels to the acre - up from 18 bushels to the acre. In dry years the zero till really had a superior yield compared to the conventional. The stubble holds the snow during the winter, and any rain you get stays sealed in the soil by the residue left there.

I have been zero tilling my land since 1980. I feel my land is in better shape because of it. I have more angle worms and it seems to be more mellow. I spend less on fuel and less time preparing the land to seed it.

God put us here to take care of the land for generations to come. We are stewards of the land and help feed the world. I firmly believe in zero till.