No-till farming has benefits, rewards

No-till farming has won over Dwight Hawkinson.
He’s done the hands-off method for eight years, convinced that it improves not only the crops but also the farm’s water quality which nurtures crops and the rest that flows into Canville Creek a couple of miles to the south.
For that attention to water quality, Dwight and April Hawkinson will be honored at the Allen County Conservation District annual meeting Wednesday evening in the Iola High School commons.
Hawkinson said he felt strongly about taking care of the fragile soil in this corner of Kansas. “We have just a few inches of topsoil and it’s important that we take care of it the best we can for future generations.”
The Hawkinsons have lived on the farm a mile south of Elsmore for 11 years. It’s a return to Dwight’s  childhood home. She is a vice president at Iola’s Community National Bank.
The farm is 320 acres, including 220 acres where milo, soybeans, oats and red clover are raised.
He also has a 30 head Angus cow-calf operation.
The switch to no-till farming came soon after Hawkinson took control of the farm and he had attended several seminars. He was convinced that the soil and the family pocketbook would fare better without field cultivator and disc around.
“I sold all my tillage equipment,” he said. “Now I have just a tractor and planter,” refitted to cut a notch through residue to deposit seed and fertilizer.
 
HAWKINSON contends that working soil in the traditional manner isn’t necessary. Microbes and earthworms keep it loose enough to permit root systems to develop and create subsoil pathways for moisture. Residue naturally decays, creating a crop-nurturing environment, just as it did before the Kansas prairie was broken.
He pointed to the organic profile of virgin prairie soil, which was covered with grass and went through stages of growth and dormancy for untold centuries.
“When the prairie first was broken out, the soil was about 25 percent organic material,” he said, which led to robust crops. “The average for tilled soil today is about 1 1/2 percent. That’s what mine was when we started no-till. Now it’s in the 2 1/2 percent range.”
As a component of no-till, Hawkinson often seeds recently harvested fields to tubular radishes, canola or rye, which keep the rain from eroding fields, in concert with terraces and waterways. In drier times, the ground cover and residue from previous crops act as mulch, to keep moisture from evaporating.
“The ground cover also adds to the soil profile and the radishes, which reach a length of 18 inches, and create channels for rainwater,” Hawkinson said.
Another benefit of no-till comes when rainfall soaks fields at harvest time.
“Last year (2009) when it was so muddy, the combine tires hardly cut in on my no-till fields,” he said, which means costly field work after the fact is avoided.
Hawkinson also notes no-till profitability is enhanced by less equipment required and less fuel consumed, a big ticket item with cost above $3 a gallon.