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Study concludes farmers can reduce tillage and maintain yield

A four-year soil study has determined crop farmers can reduce tillage and maintain yields.

University of Minnesota Extension educator Jodi DeJong-Hughes says the research focused on several soil types in the Upper Midwest and how crops responded using a chisel, vertical, or strip-till approach.

“Which tillage system we worked on did not effect the yield. It did effect soil moisture and temperature, but what it’s mainly showing is that yes, farmers can do with a lot less tillage.”

She tells Brownfield some farmers might want to reconsider how much they work their ground.

“I think we started tillage a long time ago for different reasons, and now we have different equipment, different varieties, different everything. So we can look again at our tillage say ‘You know what? Maybe we don’t need as much as we thought we did.”

DeJong-Hughes says the farms used in the study were in southeastern North Dakota and west-central Minnesota.  She describes the soils as mostly sandy, loamy, or clay.

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