#10 No Till or low Till (No Dig)

How agroecology can help you and your garden grow

A series exploring agroecological practises and how they can be utilised in our gardens and plots.

To till or not to till. That is the question.

What on earth is tilling?

In agricultural terms, tilling is turning the soil to clear a crop and/ or in preparation to plant one. Traditionally, farmers turn the soil with a phough to remove weeds (by turning them under the large clods). It can also help break up heavy soil by exposing it to winter frosts.

There is min. till, direct drilling, no till and zero till. And probably a lot more terms around this ancient technique.

Ploughing turns the soil over but min. (minimal) till cultivates to a shallower 15cms depth, and includes passing over with machinery less often and crucially not turning the soil completely over. For no till, no cultivation machines are used and seeds are direct drilled into the stubble of the previous crop.

The benefits of no till and min till are -

• improving soil health by reducing damage to soil structure.

• keeping water in the soil and reducing run off

• keeping nutrients in the soil (less fertiliesr required) & organic matter

• reducing labour and fuel costs.

Far large scale farmers, the less the soil is reduced, the better the benefits.

For cereals, rape and cover crops, no till works really well. Machinery has been developed to drill these seeds. This works best on a stable and well draining soils. This is less suitable for field vegetables or forage crops.

Min till works better on heavy clay and light sandy soils.

In the Organic v. Regenerative farming worlds, no or min tilling is one of the main topics in the which is the better agroecological practise argument.

The main issues, according to no-till advocates, is that by turning the soil, carbon is released and soil fungi with a whole host of other soil biology is disturbed. Water is lost, soil is eroded and CO2 released.

For organic farmers that do plough, they maintain that this is better for soil and plant health and biodiversity because herbicides are not required (which completely destroy soil health and are now known to be damaging to human health too).

So why I am only listing this agroecological method at #10? It seems pretty important.

Well, yes, I think it is important in large scale farming. There are new machines now that farmers can use to harvest and plant new crops in one movement. As we’ll explore more in this series, methods to reduce the need to till or plough.

But in a garden setting, do we need to dig and how much damage is caused when we do?