Re: [compost_tea] Roto-tilling is evil?

From: Frank L Teuton <fteuton_at_sympatico.ca>
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2003 09:57:33 -0500

Hi Elaine,

Now you are putting words in my mouth, eh?

I will once again refer the list to Eliot Coleman's tillage discussion in
the New Organic Grower, 2nd edition. We are growing vegetables on 10 acres
here on the island of Montreal, and although we would like to have a fancy
spading machine like they have at Roxboro farm in New York state and
elsewhere, it isn't in the budget any time soon. They cost more and go more
slowly than a rototiller, while doing less damage to the soil.

The rototiller does indeed smash up the macroaggregates. It also slices and
dices the weeds, and does an excellent job of mixing in the amendments,
getting the compost out of the harmful UV and dessication zone at the soil's
surface, while also prepping the soil for passage with either seeding or
transplanting equipment. Dunno if successional changes in the SFW are all
that important, I have grown ace broccoli in leaf mulched no till gardening
situations, but they aren't why we rototill anyway, we have other more
pressing practical reasons for doing it.

Rototilling is indeed evil, it causes lots of damage to soil structure and
hastens decomposition and the offgassing of carbon, but in our case it is a
necessary evil for the time being. Like many practices it has both upsides
and downsides.

I should have included a little 'winky eye' emoticon after my 'Sorry,
Elaine' comment to indicate an ironic reference to previous discussions, and
apologize for apparently yanking your chain.

The devil made me do it...;-)

Frank Teuton

----- Original Message -----
From: <soilfoodweb_at_aol.com>
To: <compost_tea_at_yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, November 23, 2003 4:28 PM
Subject: Re: [compost_tea] Roto-tilling is evil?


> Frank Teuron apologized to me about using a rototiller, and intimated that
I tought rototillers are evil.
>
> No. I have never said that. Please, stop trying to put words into my
mouth.
>
> Tillage intensity is important to understand. The greater the destruction
of aggregates, the greater the impact on the soil foodweb, especially on
fungi, the larger protzoa, the beneficial nematodes and the microarthropods.
>
> If you WANT to get rid of these organisms, as in you want to grow early
successional plants, then rototilling, which is a very intensive tillage
method and nearly completely destroys the macroaggregates - but not
microaggregates - is a good idea.
>
> I just want people to understand what they are doing.
>
> I don't think rototillers are evil. Any tillage method has some impact on
the soil biology. Not tilling results in greater growth of fungi, in
general. Maybe more fungi isn't a good idea, sometimes.
>
> Depends on what you are trying to grow, huh?
>
> So, Frank, if you brought good forest duff, highly fungal, into your
garden, and rototilled it into the soil, what is it that you have left in
your garden? What's the fungal to bacterial biomass ratio after you
rototill?
>
> And therefore, why would you expect that your broccoli would not be very
happy to have all that wonderful bacterial biomass humming around it's
roots?
>
> But, are ALL the fungi gone because you rototilled?
>
> Elaine Ingham
> President, Soil Foodweb Inc.
> SFI Corvallis, OR
> SFI Port Jefferson, NY
> SFI Lismore, NSW, Australia
> SFI Hilversum, The Netherlands
> SFI Cambridge, New Zealand
> www.soilfoodweb.com



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Received on Tue Nov 25 2003 - 11:26:18 EST

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