Global CA-CoP CONSERVATION AGRICULTURE COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE

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Dear Subscribers,

Please see herebelow a message from Prof. John Baker, CEO & Chairman of Baker of Baker No-Tillage in New Zealand, in response to the 4 per mille article distributed some days ago.

Amir Kassam

Moderator

e-mail: [log in to unmask]      
URL:
www.fao.org/ag/ca


Inline image 1
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: John Baker <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, Jan 24, 2017 at 10:33 PM
Subject: Forwarded article
To: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>


Dear Amir

 

Thank you for continuing to forward interesting and relevant material to me and others.

 

The Budiman Minasny et al article has particularly captured my interest because (a) the author’s material was drawn, in part, from New Zealand (amongst other countries), and (b) we commissioned a PhD study in 2012 at New Zealand’s Massey University that adds weight to one of the observations that Budiman Minasny et al made.

 

In their abstract, the authors said that:

 

“… As a strategy for climate change mitigation, soil carbon sequestration buys time over the next ten to twenty years while other effective sequestration and low carbon technologies become viable. The challenge for cropping farmers is to find disruptive technologies that will further improve soil condition and deliver increased soil carbon.”

 

A very relevant statement. But the interesting thing is that such technologies already exist. The problem is that most cropping farmers (and for that matter many scientists) do not yet fully understand the importance of (a) virtually eliminating soil disturbance altogether at seeding time, and (b) using cover crops to capture carbon from the atmosphere and sequester it into the soil.

 

Our research and engineering teams have focused on “low-disturbance no-tillage” as distinct from all other forms of so-called no-tillage. It is important to recognise that so-called “no-tillage” undertaken with tined seeding openers is not true “no-tillage” at all because such openers cause far too much soil disturbance and are unable to handle the heavy residue loads when drilling through sprayed-out cover crops in situ. Quite correctly, tined openers operating in unploughed ground are now being increasingly regarded as “strip tillage” rather than true “no-tillage”.

 

Because of these characteristics, “strip tillage” is unlikely to regularly achieve net sequestration of soil carbon during any 12 month cropping cycle. So “strip tillage” is unlikely to fulfil the astute “challenge for cropping farmers” that is espoused by Budiman Minasny et al above.

 

The alternative to tined openers operating in unploughed ground is disc openers. But these are not always the answer either because although many designs are capable of causing little soil disruption and handling the heavy residue loads of cover crops, most disc opener (although thankfully not all) create sub-optimal soil environments for the sown seeds, are unable to band fertilizer separately from the seed, and create “hairpins” of folded residues in heavy residues that interfere with germination of the sown crop.

 

Fortunately, there is at least one disc opener that, in fact, is a combination of disc and tine that does not have any of the negative characteristics of either pure disc or pure tined openers. It is one of very few “low-disturbance no-tillage openers” in existence and has the potential to do exactly what Budiman Minasny et al are  seeking.

 

Rather than go on a “sales pitch” for this device, I have attached a submission made to the New Zealand Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment in 2016 that outlines how a 12 month cycle of double cropping in New Zealand (establishing a summer arable cash crop of barley followed by either a winter cover or forage crop) can result in a net annual gain of soil carbon of approximately 500 kg per hectare compared with a net loss of approximately 2,000 kg/ha of soil carbon when the same rotation is undertaken by conventional tillage.

 

Please see the attached for details.

 

Hopefully it illustrates the wisdom of the Budiman Minasny et al conclusions.

 

Kind regards

 

John Baker

Dr C John Baker, ONZM

Chief Executive Officer & Chairman

Baker No-Tillage Limited

P.O. Box 181

Feilding 4740

New Zealand

Ph. +64 6 323 1119 (d.d. extn. 801)

Cell. +64 21 715 205

 

 

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