By Mary Ann Rood L ast year, more Louisiana rice farmers than ever before put acreage in reduced tillage. Acreage not conventionally tilled jumped from 19 to 26 percent in 1999, says Pat Bollich, rice agronomist at the Rice Research Station at Crowley. I d like to see everybody try it, he says. Farmers are already good environmental stewards, but we can do more. The big environmental plus is soil stays in the field.
Less erosion means improved water quality of receiving streams.
Less tilling also conserves soil moisture. Fall weather usually offers more dry days to work the ground, but figuring bottom line pluses is complicated because of all the trade-offs. Bollich points to reduced weed pressure, better stand establishment and the biggest payoff, timely planting. While there is some room for modest yield increases with stale beds, he says, farmers should not expect this technology to increase yields overnight. If we average out results across all of the varieties we have evaluated for the past seven years, we end up with a 100-pound yield advantage with the stale bed system.