187-10
Five Years of Continuous Organic No-Till Grain Production: Lessons Learned.

Poster Number 1005

Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Tampa Convention Center, East Hall, Third Floor

Martin H. Entz1, Caroline Halde1 and Keith Bamford2, (1)Department of Plant Science, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada
(2)Plant Science, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada
Both no-till and organic farmers often pose the question “Can we develop an organic no-till system?”  Such an experiment was started in Carman, Manitoba in 2008.  The rotation was a barley/hairy vetch green manure (2008); flax (2009); oats (2010); barley/hairy vetch green manure (2011); wheat (2012); fall rye (2013).  The experimental design was a randomized complete block in a factorial arrangement with 4 replicates.  The rotation was managed with no-till and tillage under both conventional and organic management.  Total biomass production in the barley/hairy vetch green manure was approximately 7000 kg/ha in both 2008 and 2011.  The barley/hairy vetch was blade rolled in mid-July.  Rolling kills the barley but the hairy vetch continues to grow until freeze-up; allowing more biomass accumulation. No difference was observed in till vs no-till organic crops in 2009 and 2010.  By 2011, wheat in the organic no-till treatment produced only 1000 kg/ha of grain yield (1/3 of the tilled organic treatment) owing to competition from perennial weeds, mostly dandelion and some Canada thistle.  This observation suggests that long-term organic no-till may have limits.  Fall rye was seeded into the wheat stubble in September, 2012 and then sheep were used for pre-emergence weed control.  It is hoped that the competitive nature of fall rye will allow for a successful 6th organic no-till crop.
See more from this Division: ASA Section: Agronomic Production Systems
See more from this Session: General Organic Management Systems: I (includes graduate student competition)

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