Better crops with less cultivation

Press, 11 October 1986, Page 20

Better crops with less cultivation

Trials carried out by the National Vegetable Research Station in Britain have shown that better vegetable crops can be achieved with less cultivation, reports Louise Hall for the London Press Service. While conventional cultivation has vegetable growers ploughing in the autumn and carrying out all cultivations in the spring, reduced cultivation involves ploughing and levelling the land in the autumn and either drilling directly into the surface in the spring or doing a very shallow cultivation of about 25 to 30 millimetres, the depth at which the seeds are to be planted. “We found that the shallower we cultivated, the greater the number of days — almost twice as many — one could get out and

work,” says Dr Hugh Rowse, who was responsible for conducting the trials. “Another advantage of the method is that lighter equipment can be used, thus reducing soil compaction. But to our great surprise and delight, the carrots and onions drilled under the reduced tillage method actually grew very much better, particularly in dry conditions.” This is attributed to the improved water supply in the zone of undisturbed soil beneath the seed. If soil is loosened deeply and the weather stays dry, any seed sown in the middle of the loosened soil is going to be in a dry environment. But if the soil - is loosened only to the depth at j which the seed is sown, the » undisturbed soil below conducts [ moisture up to the seed.