Lessons From Reduced Tillage In the Red River Valley

Majority of farms in the Red River Valley have always used conventional tillage practices as a way to prep the seedbed for spring, control weeds, and allow the fields to dry quicker in the spring. In the fall of 2021, many farms made the decision to reduce tillage (sometimes for the first time ever) or eliminate the practice completely. And through the challenging spring that the RRV has been experiencing, I’ve been seeing/hearing lots of comments of “this is why no-till doesn’t work in the RRV”.

Like many other farms in the RRV, Pitura Seed Farms was preparing for the risk of another dry spring like we experienced in 2021. And if that was the case, we needed to be increasing snow catch and trying to reduce wind erosion through the winter.

All acres, except for fields going into peas, received a pass with a concord 12” spacing cultivator to apply some fall fertility, cereal and canola stubble were also harrowed, and fields going into soybeans in 2022 received 1 pass with a deep ripper. For reference, a more normal tillage plan for this farm would be harrow + 1-2 cultivation passes + fertility pass. So, we cut out 2 or more tillage passes on some fields last fall.

The question we will be asking for future seasons is: Is it necessary to work the field with more than 1 tillage pass every year?

So far in spring 2022 we have noticed a couple of things in our fields:

1. More soil blowing on soybean stubble fields than minimal or no-till fields. Since soil blowing is a common issue in the RRV, we were glad to see that the snow cover caught in stubble helped keep our topsoil in place. We noticed dirtier snow and soil swirling on the soy stubble fields.

2. Difference in snow melt/fields opening up in the spring – our canola stubble was the first to fully melt off this spring. With the taller stubble in those fields, we noticed less wind-packed snow than the soy or cereal ground. Fluffier snow melts faster!

3. Difference in spring drying – Fields were only harrowed in the fall required a spring harrow pass before the seeder could go in after a rain event. But fields that had a concord pass dried well and did not require a harrow pass prior to the seeder.

The concord left some ridges in the fields and for an ideal canola seed bed it would have typically received a harrow pass but the seeder was still doing a nice job through the “rougher” field. The seeder was set with heavy down pressure and the same depth setting as cereals instead of making it shallower – this was to ensure that all seed is in good moisture while travelling on rougher fields. Overall, a good job was done of seeding the canola without spending the time and fuel on any additional tillage/harrow passes.

No-till farming may not work for everyone in the RRV, but after all of this, we are starting to consider that not all fields need to be tilled black every fall in order to get them to prepped and dry for the spring.

-Katie Meggison