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September 28, 2004: The Rodale Institute's
organic no-till system, described in The New Farm in November
2003 (to read the original story, click
here), will be replicated and disseminated to farmers across
the country thanks to a grant from the USDA Natural Resources
Conservation Service.
The $541,050 grant, officially announced on September 16,
2004, was made within the NRCS Conservation Innovation Grants
program. Grant monies will be matched 1:1 from non-federal
sources.
"In many ways, organic no-till represents the best possible
farming strategy for temperate systems," says Jeff Moyer,
Rodale Institute farm manager and project director for the
grant. "It brings together the environmental benefits
of organic production—eliminating chemical pesticides
and fertilizers and improving soil quality through composts
and cover crops—with the conservation benefits of reduced
or zero-tillage."
Dubbed "No-till Plus," the three-year project is
centered on The Rodale Institute's development of an innovative
crimper-roller implement that converts a standing cover crop
into a weed-suppressing, soil-building mulch. Because the
roller is designed to mount on the front of a tractor, it
can be paired with a no-till planter assembly to knock down
cover crops and plant a primary crop in a single pass.
Activities to be funded by the grant include continued testing
and improvement of the organic no-till system at The Rodale
Institute farm in eastern Pennsylvania; fabrication and distribution
of ten similar cover crop rollers to cooperating farmers across
the country; and documentation and publicizing of the project
on NewFarm.org.
Moyer has been farming organically for more than 25 years
and has long sought to minimize tillage and maximize the use
of cover crops to suppress weeds, supply nitrogen, build soil
organic matter and prevent erosion. The new front-mounted
roller was constructed in 2002 and first used on hairy vetch
and small grain cover crops in the 2003 field season. In 2004,
Moyer and his farm operations team used the organic no-till
system to plant pumpkins, corn and soybeans.
Collaborating farmers wanted
With the help of the NRCS grant, the system will be outreached
and field-tested in the seven U.S. regions where conventional
no-till is most widely practiced: the Southeast, Delta, Appalachia,
Northeast, Corn Belt, Great Lakes and Northern Plains states.
Regional collaborators will work with a variety of major crops,
cover crops and geographies and will be encouraged to suggest
modifications to the system based on prevailing needs and
experiences. Farmers interested in participating are encouraged
to contact Moyer directly at jeff.moyer@rodaleinst.org.
According to the USDA Economic Research Service, 52.5 million
acres – or 17.5 percent of all U.S. planted cropland
– were in no-till management in 2000. One of the goals
of the project is to discover how many of those acres could
potentially be converted to organic no-till. Although some
conventional no-till farmers use cover crops for fertility
and weed suppression, on average, conventional no-till requires
as many or more herbicide and pesticide applications as traditional
tillage systems.
For a complete listing of NRCS Conservation Innovation Grant
awards, visit:
http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/programs/cig/2004grants.html
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