During a “Future of No-till” presentation at Western Illinois University, New Zealander John Baker discussed how current no-till practices have only achieved about 50% of its potential conservation agriculture capability.

Baker, who initiated a research and development program at New Zealand’s Massey University in 1967, aimed to identify and eliminate issues in no-till by studying soil science and the impact of no-till seeding openers.

Baker says in the past, the focus for “conservation agriculture” has been largely on achieving visible objects such as reducing the severity and nature of soil disturbance, leaving as much crop residue as possible on the soil surface, utilizing cover crops and controlling wheel traffic as much as possible.

The result has been the development and implementation of practices such as minimum till, strip till, vertical tillage and no-till. In Baker’s view, all of these practices collectively have progressed conservation agriculture to achieving about 50% of its true objectives, which are:

 Remaining silver bullets

What is now needed is to focus on the remaining 50% of conservation agriculture’s objectives. Baker says we need to maximize the two invisible “silver bullet” assets offered by low-disturbance no-tillage – water vapor and carbon. And only true low-disturbance no-tillage is capable of doing this, he adds.

After 30 years of work refining openers for seeding, he left the university and formed Baker No-Tillage Ltd. Since 1998, Baker’s company has successfully marketed Cross Slot low-disturbance no-tillage machines for small grain production in 21 countries across the globe, with particular emphasis on Australia, Europe and North America.

Now, Baker and his team are currently developing a Cross Slot corn planter.

In his presentation, Baker highlighted how his research ranked no-till openers on 29 diff functions, but there are five key functions:

Baker and his colleagues researched numerous no-till drill openers. The three slots they started comparing: V shape (double-disk), U shape and inverted-T shape (shank with wings).

“We created a winged inverted-T opener, which research proved to increase germination to 77%, from 24% (hoe opener/double disk opener). Initially, we didn’t know why. After more research, we learned that the pore spaces contain 100% relative humidity. However, when cultivated, we lost that humidity. That’s when we realized it is a silver bullet.”

Further research measured water vapor retention in the slot (see image above), and the Inverted-T slot retained much more relative humidity (microclimate) to increase germination. Baker says It takes a little longer to germinate from the inverted slot (seed on one side, fertilizer on the other side, flap closes on top). “You don’t actually need soil for a seed to germinate, just air and water vapor. Soil usually delivers water to the seed. But if you have water vapor in the slot, then soil moisture is less critical. Works same with monocots as dicots. The flap cover traps the humidity.”

Baker isn’t shy about his views on corn planters. “There is nothing worse than a double disc opener, biologically, to seed into no-till. It’s bad news. Why they are used on corn planters, I don’t know. “

Water vapor value

Water vapor, in the form of the air humidity within undisturbed soil and decaying residues, has a strong influence on:

The above slide shows research comparing the effects of slot shape on compaction and oxygen diffusion. Baker shows that no-till drill openers can influence aeration around seeds and roots in wet soils. With no-till, a slot wall is created between the slot zone and the undisturbed soil alongside. If these slot walls are nearly vertical (and even worse are compacted or at least smeared) they may restrict early root growth to the extent that in severe cases the roots never leave the slot zone and the crop performs poorly.

Baker hightlighted a global reality check on yield (see above). “We’ve had improvements in genetics, herbicides, insecticides, fungicides and precision farming from 1990 to 2015. But, yield increases have been held down by soil barriers: declining soil carbon and organic matter; declining soil microbes and fauna; declining soil structure, compaction and erosion; poor soil moisture status due to reduced OM (wet and dry); and limited innovation in opener design. The end result is no change, unless we focus on soil organic matter and carbon.”

Saving carbon

Minimizing carbon discharge from the soil and decaying organic matter and maximizing carbon sequestration from decaying surface organic matter are complimentary objectives:

Baker says it took 20 years to develop the Cross Slot, which he claims removes these barriers to yield increases. “You need a machine that can universally do all these things.”

Critical functions of no-tillage openers and drills

Given these 29 critical functions, research rated all 7 openers by each attributes (scored 1-5) and developed an overall rating as a percentage of a perfect score (see above):

(see individual ratings here on page 31 of this Q&A PDF)

Baker didn’t share any information about their corn planter during his presentation, but their website shows this small 4-row prototype Cross Slot precision maize planter in New Zealand (12-row folding Cross Slot planters are in the course of development). Will keep you posted when we obtain more information.

Further information:

Baker and colleagues published a book of their science over 30 years: “No-tillage Seeding in Conservation Agriculture.”

View Baker’s one-hour presentation.