No-till seed drill. Cedar Meadow Farm, Holtwood, PA

By Mark Goodson, Penn State Extension Educator, Capital Region

Increasing fuel prices, scarcity of labor, and flat markets have producers scratching their heads and sharpening their pencils. No one is looking forward to their spring fuel bills. Some are considering continuous no-till as a management practice that can increase their return on investment by lowering fuel, labor and equipment input costs.

In late 2005, the Pennsylvania No-till Alliance developed a technique to document the actual time, fuel and equipment savings that a Pennsylvania farmer could expect to realize by adopting no-till as compared to traditional tillage systems utilizing plow, cultipack, chisel and disk.

The findings are remarkable.

Farmers practicing continuous no-till can expect to spend one-half to one-third the time and fuel preparing and planting their spring crops compared to conventional and conservation tillage.

The No-Till Alliance economic workgroup, composed of producer and agency partners, analyzed an actual single-operator 650 grain production enterprise in south-central Pennsylvania. The No-Till Alliance was interested in illustrating the economic benefits of continuous no-till over conventional tillage systems. They were not disappointed.

In addition to significantly lower fuel consumption in the no-till system, the study demonstrated important improvements in timeliness efficiencies. Many of today’s crop production operations can be labor-stressed in the spring and in the fall during field preparation, planting and harvesting seasons.

This study demonstrated that producers can not only lower their fuel and equipment costs, they can also lower the field time required to complete spring and fall planting to allow more timely manure spreading, optimum planting, and timely harvest for high quality forage.

The no-till economics workgroup considered the following factors: number of days available for spring work, tillage and no-till equipment width, working speed, horsepower needed and fuel required for conventional, conservation and no-till systems. Acres per hour and gallons of fuel per hour were calculated for each operation in each system.

In every calculation, no-till practices decrease these costs of production by 50% to 70%. The fuel savings are comparable to those calculated by the USDA NRCS Energy Estimator online.

The workgroup plans to fine-tune the techniques used in this study and develop spreadsheet tools that can be used to compare the economics of tillage techniques on any commercially productive crop operation in Pennsylvania.

The farm that served as the model for this study is a 650-acre grain operation owned and operated by Russell McLucas of McConnellsburg. Partners in the study were Penn State Capital Region extension educators Mark Goodson and Matt Harsh, PA Department of Environmental Protection’s Jay Braund, Capital RC&D coordinator Susan Parry and USDA NRCS-PA economist Colleen Tennity.

Farmer cooperator and PA No-Till Alliance board member Russell McLucas presented the results of this study at the Southern Allegheny Resource and Conservation District and Pennsylvania Southwest Regional meeting of the Pennsylvania Association of Conservation Districts in October 2005. In January 2006, McLucas presented the findings at the 14th Annual No-Till Conference in St. Louis, MO.

The Pennsylvania No-Till Alliance is a non profit organization with a farmer board of directors. Membership costs $25 per year and is open to all.

For more information, contact Susan Parry by sending email to: susan.parry@pa.usda.gov at the Capital RC&D or call 717-948-6633.

Mark Goodson can be contacted by sending email to: mwg1@psu.edu

Note: The Pennsylvania No-Till Alliance will hold its next meeting on March 15 in State College at the Ramada Conference Center.

Link: Farm Equipment Rental Program Helps Promote No-Till Farming

1/27/2006