No-till farming is a practice where plant material is left to shield the soil and to decay. A process that produces valuable nutrients. It also increases production and water content in soil, and requires fewer input costs says Scott Ravenkamp. He’s a farmer from the eastern Colorado town of Hugo.
This report comes from Kansas AgLand.
Lance Feikert no-till farms near Bucklin, Kansas, southeast of Dodge City. He estimates only about one-fourth of the land around him is no-till.
Steve Swaffar is the executive director of No-till on the Plains—an organization dedicated to the farming method. He says roughly one-third of Kansas cropland is no-till.
But, why aren’t other farmers adopting the method that is water efficient and allows crops to thrive as conditions turn dry?
“The hardest part is admitting what you’ve done your whole life could have been wrong.” says Ravenkamp.
“It’s a mindset,” Feikert says. “They’re used to the past, whatever they’ve been doing.”
The farmers both attended the 19th annual No-till on the Plains Winter Conference. More than 900 farmers from the Midwest and around the world were in Salina, Kansas learning from experts how to transition to no-till or improve their current no-till practice.