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Field Fodder: Have you considered what each tillage pass is costing you?

January 30, 2019

3 Min Read
red harrow and John Deere tractor
COST OF PRODUCTION: As you prepare for planting season, it is always good to consider your cost of production.

There are plenty of benefits of no-till, including reductions in soil and nutrient losses, along with improved soil health. Studies indicate that reduced tillage systems increase crop residue cover and decrease soil erosion while having minimal effect on crop yields. 

Paul Jasa, Extension engineer with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said in a March 2018 article titled “Building Resilient Soil Systems Using Residue, No-till, and Cover Crops” that crop residue management, no-till crop production and cover crops are important methods to reduce wind and water erosion, decrease runoff along with potential nutrient losses and evaporation, and improve soil health for a more resilient soil. Jasa said, “A well-structured, healthy soil has better infiltration and enhanced moisture storage capacity, making it more resilient to weather variability.”

Research at the UNL Rogers Memorial Farm near Lincoln demonstrated that water infiltration improves with improved soil structure of continuous no-till, thus reducing runoff. Jasa found a much greater water infiltration rate for no-till of over 4 inches per hour, compared to tilled conditions with only 0.4 inch per hour after 25 years of continuous tillage system evaluation. This makes for a much more resilient system capable of withstanding recent trends where we get more than 1 inch of rain per hour.

According to a March 2016 report by Gregory Ibendahl, Kansas State University, “Farms practicing 100% no-till tend to have both higher yields and greater profitability than farms that practice some level of tillage.”

Mahdi Al-Kaisi, Iowa State University, reported that in his 16-year long-term tillage studies, soybeans in no-till performed as good as or better than conventional tillage systems. Kaisi’s research shows a reduction of $15 to $30 per acre in input costs with no-till compared to conventional tillage systems. 

Jodi Dejong-Hughes, University of Minnesota, and Aaron Daigh, North Dakota State University, said in the recently published article “Economics of Tillage” that tillage costs per acre for a two-year corn-and-soybean rotation ranged from $29 for strip till to $48 for a fall disk-rip-and-chisel-plow rotation. That is a savings of $19 per acre with strip till compared to disk rip and chisel. These results are from three years of on-farm research conducted in west-central Minnesota from 2010 to 2012. Savings come in the form of less fuel used, less labor and less equipment.

So how does this stack up on your farm?

As you prepare for planting season, it is always good to consider your cost of production — especially when margins are looking like they will be tight again this year. Are there ways you may be able to trim your costs without taking a hit on production? Have you considered what each tillage pass across the field is costing you and whether that pass is really necessary?

To compare scenarios of no-till to one, two, three or more tillage passes and see how that affects your bottom line, you can use the Crop Budget Analyzer Excel spreadsheet developed by Ken Williams, a retired Extension ag agent for Waushara County, Wis. It is a simple-to-use spreadsheet where you can enter your own costs for fertilizer, herbicides, expected yields and selling price, etc., and it will calculate a net return per acre. The spreadsheet can be downloaded from the Waushara County Extension Agriculture website.

Download the spreadsheet and use all your own expected costs and returns.

Schroeder is the Extension agriculture agent in Portage County, Wis.

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