No-till Vs. Conventional tillage agriculture

To till or not to till that is the question? This may seem like a silly pun on one of Shakespeare's famous lines, but this is a very valid question with many farmers across the land today. No-till, or conservation tillage is a increasingly popular means of working the land by preparing a micro seed bed 2-3” wide. When compared to conventional tillage where soil is inverted and mixed, conservation tillage seems very low impact. …

…decrease the amount of available nitrogen because most of it will become immobilized (unavailable to plants) by soil microbes. This can result in the application of woody debris (they have a high C:N ratio), but usually doesn’t occur with the mulch left from conservation tillage. The increase of organic material in the soil surface layers also results in an increased cation exchange coefficient, which helps increase the amount of nutrients plants take up