Experiments

Everything I do on the farm is an experiment. Everything I do aims to improve the health of the soil. Experiments are my signposts.

One big question I would like to answer is this: We all know that tillage is detrimental to soil health. We all know that herbicides are detrimental to soil health. But which is the most detrimental?

I am doing a field experiment to try to work this out. It looks like this….

Autumn 2016: plant a multi species perennial herbal ley incorporating grasses clovers and herbs with the goal of increasing organic matter and the natural fertility of the soil. By summer 2017 it looks like this:

And smells equally beautiful. It is grazed (not quite mob grazed, but grazed at high intensity, with long breaks) by sheep on and off for 2 years.

In autumn 2018 half of the ley (the nearer half in the photo below) is destroyed by 4-5 passes of very shallow tillage, and half is destroyed by a single application of glyphosate. See below.

What! – all that diesel to do 4-5 passes of cultivation! And you can do a better job from one application of glyphosate!……. But……

Don’t draw your conclusions too quickly – glyphosate has an energy of manufacture (and CO2 footprint approx) equivalent to 15-20 litres of diesel, from memory. So in fact the CO2 and energy equation is pretty similar for both methods (perhaps someone who knows more about this would like to verify it?)

Next we used a double disc coulter direct drill (almost alliteration!) to drill both halves of the field at the same seed rate at the same time.

We drilled a population of old and new wheat varieties and crosses called Wakelyns YQ. “Populations are genetically diverse. All plants are genetically distinct while all of those in standard pureline varieties are almost identical. Populations are better able to adapt to unpredictable environments, including weather and pest/disease pressures.”

http://www.organicresearchcentre.com/?i=articles.php&art_id=783&go=Information%20and%20publications

In hindsight, it was planted too late, and the plant population too low, but we do have a smattering of plants in both halves of the field and one can see up the rows. Photos to follow as the season progresses……..