Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, May 1, 1990                   TAG: 9005010058
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: OTTER HILL                                LENGTH: Medium

NO-TILL FARM MAKES FOR NO BIG SOIL LOSS

Frankly, though, their fields are ugly.

There is no meticulously plowed land on the sloping Turner farm. There are bristly patches of decaying corn stubble from last year, there are fields of dead and brittle grain slowly keeling over, there are fields of yellowing pasture grass.

Picturesque it is not.

But to practice no-till farming, as the Turners do, is to sacrifice some of the traditional beauty of farming.

Conventional tillage is neater, using a moldboard plow to churn soil as much as 18 inches deep. The plowing controls weeds by ripping their roots free of the soil and exposing them to the sun. The plowing also prevents the soil from compacting beneath the repeated weight of tractors.

But the plow also lays bare soil to the sun, and fields lose moisture quickly. Rain and wind, two forces that can push tons of topsoil from a single acre in just a year's time, can wash away seeds and soil.

No-till farming is a planting method designed to reduce soil erosion by leaving field surfaces undisturbed.

The residue of preceding crops is left on the fields to rot into moisture-holding mulch, and to shield bare soil from pelting rain.

A sharp colter makes a narrow slit in the soil, maybe half an inch wide. Behind it, the planter drops in a single seed every 7 inches. A pair of wheels come last, pinching loosened soil over the furrow to cover the seed. Nothing else on the surface is moved, and so a planted field looks no different than it did before the planter passed.

Protection from erosion is no-till's biggest benefit. Some farmers say, too, that they save on fuel because they don't have to drive over their fields time and again before planting to plow, disc and drag the soil into condition.

But the biggest drawback of no-till planting, says Dale Wolf of the Virginia Tech Extension Service, is its reliance on chemicals.

Without a plow blade to yank weed roots, no-till farmers must rely heavily on herbicides to control weeds. Soil compaction, in which air pockets are crushed from fields by the weight of heavy equipment, can also be more of a problem with no-till planting.

The Turners' fields may be ugly. But you're less likely to find their soil at the bottom of the hill after the next gulley-washing rain.

"I've never seen it come back uphill," says Ray Turner.