If No-Till is So Great, Why Isn't Everyone Doing it?

Why would someone not choose no-till? That's today's video.

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[FrancisFenderson]

Let me get this straight. No dogma. No inflexible prescriptions. Instead, you're encouraging me to continuously learn more and then apply the relevant data where it makes sense in the context of my market garden to support soil health? What is this madness? 😉 As always, thank you for sharing your experiences with us. I'm going into my second year with my market garden and am grateful for the ways in which you've shaped my thinking. All the best to you.

[AnenLaylle]

I farm in South Carolina. My family has 170 acres of land that is mostly just a forest of pine trees. Our approach to agriculture is a bit different than anything I've seen on any Youtube channel. When we are setting up a new plot we chop all the smaller pine trees down (we leave the large ones), burn the entire field, till the entire field, plant cover crops for three years in said area, let the wild deer eat the cover crop, burn the area again, till it again, and then form beds. After that I throw up some electric deer fencing and it's off to the races. The land is so fertile by this point I barely have to use any fertilizer, of which I prefer 10-10-10. When I mean the land is fertile, I mean it. My soil looks like peat moss, it has so much organic matter. Hydrophobia is a major problem, as so much organic matter has broken down, which creates a waxy like substance. It's a spongey amazing reddish color. This is a major benefit of converting forest to farm. The topsoil is freakin insane.

I grew an acre of field corn for 50 dollars this summer. I got 250 bags of deer feed that I sold. Thank you deer for your free poop. Once the yields start looking crappy and I have to use more fertilizer we replant baby pine trees in that spot and repeat the process somewhere else. We're essentially sweeping a big circle on a piece of the 170 acres in this manner. I've found the perfect small scale farming model, but nobody wants to hear it because you need about 50 acres minimum to really pull it off.

When we made the road through our land we used a wood chipper and piled the wood chips on either side of the road. My uncle went through and planted around 100 blueberry plants, 100 raspberry plants, and 100 blackberry plants into the wood chips. It's like a mile of berries now. Never had to fertilize once. We make around $10, 000 off of just this part of the farm every year.

Slash and burn followed by cover cropping and letting the local fauna eat the cover crops and poop all over the soon to be plot is peak regenerative agriculture. Prove me wrong.

[volkerbosch]

sorry, please excuse my bad English. My observation here in Europe is that the no-till movement has gained massively in importance. Here in Germany, around 1300 micro farms were set up to grow vegetables last year. The most with no-till

[eastcoasthomestead]

Our goal is to get to no till, but our ground is soooo rocky, that we have to literally have to start at square one and create soil. We have lived here 4 years. Our first year we trucked in compost to put in the raised beds since we couldn’t even get a tiller through the soil (it literally bounced off the surface). The second year, we got another load in and a caterpillar tunnel. Each year we have set aside a section of land where we will build soil. We have chickens/turkeys/ pigs for some parts of the year so we take all the soiled shavings and pile them in the new area and till them twice-once in spring as soon as the ground is thawed and again in the fall. This year was the first year we observed worms in the section we tilled our second year so we planted in it and got good yields! We will keep doing this until the area we want for gardens is “big enough” and has enough “earth” that we don’t have to build it any more, just add a bit more compost. It’s a long term project for sure! But we will get there!

[goodboysongs]

Hey Jesse, I just want to say this is hands down my favourite YouTube channel exactly for videos like this. I see your video, my brain does an Irish jig and I click instantly. I love that you can take a skeptical question from the comments about your farming philosophy and answer it respectfully and informatively with nuance and humility, without being defensive or falling into the trap of dogma. Since the comments section on YouTube can sometimes be a cesspool and you probably don’t hear it enough, from a farmer going on 13 years of constant experimentation (8 years running my own farm, and 5 of those years transitioning and operating it no till *because of YOU*), thank you for everything you do. You’re awesome. See you in the next video. Okay. Bye.

Edit: And say hello to kitty cat for me. She’s awesome too. Meow meow meow. Purr. (She’ll understand what that means.) Good kitty cat.

[federicomachon]

You are correct what works some place may not work at the other side of the road.

[a_l_e_k_sandra]

If "how to" is not supported by a "why", you are not learning much. Love this channel. Context is so important and you are doing great job discussing many whys.

[donscottvansandt]

I know of one farmer who went against the norm... his wife left him and everyone said he was crazy... that year he had a bumper crop and all the other farmers in that area failed. He acquired another farm that year. He continued to grow and now is the most successful in his area

[project]

One thing that I've experienced is the reluctance of institutions to entertain new ideas. When I was first getting started with a little plot in my back yard, LOTS of people gave me the advice to contact my local cooperative extension office for information and advice. On one hand, they were great with recommendations for which varieties grew best and for basic soil tests. On the other hand, the Master Gardeners were very limited in what they could (or would) talk about outside of "traditional" gardening practices. Asking about no-till practices frequently got me looks like I was a crazy person and recommendations for the best rototilling services in my area. Trying to get advice on permaculture practices like hugelkultur or dynamic accumulators was impossible. It has gotten a bit better in recent years, but I can only wonder how many gardeners get introduced to the "old" practices by local extension offices and never go beyond those methods.

[treelee]

I'm a market gardener in SW France, midway across the Pyrenees. It's a 'micro' production - little more than 1 acre, using 5-6 300m sq rectangles for rotation. All under organic cert rules. I use hi grade black plastic to prep new ground, and afterwards the tractor with a 2-blade plough and a 5ft rotovator. I'm fully aware of no-dig and apply some principles, however the reason I won't go any further is VOLES, which are prolific in surrounding valley. Voles will chew the roots of any plant but are especially content to scoff carrots and potatoes. They are rarely seen above ground, staying hidden in the upper foot deep layer (or even 8"). If you put any object or mulch down, voles will take full advantage of the security it offers to not tunnel, but pass at the surface interface. The ground must be turned to disturb them. Before planting out I plough then pass at least 3x with the rotovator. I keep a barrier perimeter strip around each rectangle - and turn this over many times more. I've tried trapping the beggars - not v practical on this scale. Cats & dogs are helpful, as are presence of predators, but there's only so much they can do.

[CherrieMcKenzie]

I did not know how seriously some people take this stuff till or no till until I started videoing my garden. I try a little of everything to see what works. You have been an inspiration and helped my garden be more successful last summer and I'm sure in the next growing season. I have gardened for years and never heard of no till so I'll end it by saying: "You don't know what you DON'T know" haha

[paulmcwhorter]

I love your videos, and learn a lot from every one. I think part of the problem with scaling also is that no-till tends to be more labor intensive. There seems to be a sweet spot where a farmer with family members, maybe a few teenage helpers, or maybe a few interns who will work in exchange for room and board, can find a place where they can be profitable and self sustaining. If you wanted to scale up by 10X labor becomes a big issues. Few people are willing to do the hard work, so even labor availability becomes a challenge. Even if you can find someone willing to take the job, if you hire ten full time workers to scale your operation up, then all the sudden you have a full time job managing your personnel, which takes away the time you used to spend managing the crops. Also, with full time employees, then you need a book keeper and someone to take care of all the paperwork requirements. It just seems hard to make it to a point that is 10X bigger than a small family operated business. It is what needs to be done, but it is just hard to get there.

[ardenthebibliophile]

I was digging through your old videos and stumbled across the no till carrots yesterday.

What I found interesting is during a transition to a new method (you were transitioning to no till) a farmer will have to spend extra time and energy figuring out whether it works, and whether it "just needs a few seasons to get right".

Considering No-Till has a big push to build an ecosystem, it can be hard to take what feels like a gamble on it for multiple years while the biome figures itself out. You'll likely face new pest pressures (though hopefully less) and different nutrient challenges.

I really appreciate the nuanced take you bring.

FYI if you ever want to go down a rabbit hole, there is a British book series called "the conservation handbook" which goes into GREAT detail about many different traditional practices. I learned a lot about hedges as they take them very very seriously

[johnransom]

I know a farmer that does air seeding. Compressed air drills the seeds into unploughed fields with the crop residue still there. He contracts out his services and does quite well. It’s no dig, saves fuel, saves multiple trips over the field, ie time and prevents soil erosion.

[angelad.]

Many interesting comments and thoughts here. I am a horticulturalist and landscaper by trade. I did my education at an agricultural school in Ontario, Canada in the 90s. My education and the education of the people taking "farming" courses, did not include any information about no till/no dig gardening. While the fundamentals of our program were taught, it was definitely geared towards a career involving tilling, chemicals and products commercially available. I did do a soil course but it really focused on nutrients for plants and nothing else.

Today, we know so much more about the world of soil and it's connection and the overall health connections. Science is catching up and helping everyone who wants to know about these connections. It is channels like this that help educate and spread the word that no dig/regenerative gardening is an option for some.

I myself have some no dig beds, a larger garden that we use the rototiller on and a couple Hugelkultur mounds that are no dig. I didn't start off with no dig but as the years go by, I have understood my land and do what works in the different areas. Once I build up the soils in those areas and get them to where I think they are really healthy, then I transition them into no dig if I feel like they are ready and will thrive. There are several factors that affect an area and sometimes you just have to deal with them first and that's ok.

I do agree that many farmers are learning and with each generation change will come. As long as there are people out there sharing what they are doing so that everyone knows what the options are, eventually the industries will follow suit. Simply because that is how they will make their money. When the consumers are educated many will make the choice to buy produce from small local market gardens or even start growing themselves.

For those of us who are passionate about these methods, it is really important to develop a community around you and create a small movement that gains notice in your area, so that more and more people can learn and join. It takes a village as they say. ☺

We have 10 acres here but most of it is forest. Permaculture is my jam. I incorporate many species around the property that are perennial or self seeding so that my food forest provides without a lot of interference. So you see, I give everything a try. In the end a combination might be what works for you. Just start. Make the change. Move forward. There will be a community out there to help you along. Be brave. Best of luck. ☺

[lambsquartersfarm]

I think you nailed why conventional farmers do what they do, they do care. Unfortunately I don’t see any kind of certification working though, it will just end up being captured like every other one.

[lauramonahan]

My dad is a 4th generation traditional farmer. The restrictive culture is REAL with older farming generations in our area. Why doesn't everyone eat a healthy diet and exercise regularly? Human nature, which defies logic more than we admit. Change is scary to many people. GD stubbornness is another element.

[bigrich]

I’m just a retired guy with a backyard garden in raised beds with no particular expertise, but I love gardening and have been doing it for many decades, and as a young man, worked on a 80 acre farm growing vegetables. We always disced and plowed in the spring, then planted. I had no reason to question the methods. They worked and we raised and sold lots of vegetables. In the ‘80s I started a family and began backyard gardening, and also began moving toward more organic methods. I was a faithful reader of Rodale’s Organic Gardening magazine, and since then have always incorporated organic pest control, fertilization and composting into my garden, although I believe there’s a place for synthetic fertilizer. I say all that to say that I’ve mulled these questions around in my head for the better part of 50 years, and a question that has occurred to me, is that all composting methods encourage some degree of turning (aka tilling) to incorporate air for aerobic bacteria. Why is it beneficial to till compost but not the soil? I’m not sure I buy into the no till rationale, if I understand it correctly. Even in my raised beds, with soil as soft as a baby’s behind, some degree of aeration is needed after a long growing season, where the soil has become relatively compacted due to rain and watering, and re-amending the soil requires working the amendments into the top layers of soil. Doesn’t all this sort of making tilling or not tilling a moot point?

[joshuahoyer]

Not a farmer here, but I have been working our home garden areas into the no-till/no-dig/Back To Eden style, and it's been so awesome to see the difference in our plant health and harvests. It is so worth the effort in diving deep into the rabbit hole that is the soil food web. I've had the occasional crazy thought of starting our own no-till market garden somewhere, but it would be really hard to break away from my current career, considering how much it provides for our family. But kudos to all the larger scale gardeners and farmers who are giving this a go to provide us with quality food with such a reduced impact to our ecology.

[tricial]

Thank you for giving an honest and balanced perspective about how and why our food is grown in various ways.