To till or not to till

摘要

When NSW DPI researchers put out a call for farmers to provide trial sites for a project investigating the agronomic and economic impacts of incorporating strategic tillage into conservation farming practices, there was no shortage of potential collaborators.Mark Conyers, who leads the GRDC-funded project, believes the farmer interest was due to the projectresponding to the reality that many, if not most, farmers were already using some degree of tillage in their systems."When we went looking at potential sites a few years back, we found most cockies had a scarifier or offset discs sitting behind the shed, and they weren't going rusty," Conyers said. "The average cocky is out there cultivating strategically. Our projectis looking at the science behind doing that. We're aiming to provide some scientific validation for strategic cultivation and to put some numbers on just how long it takes the soil to recover from tilling."