BEST THING SINCE SLICED BREAD
Have you noticed that the ring-billed gull is not seen flying overhead in great numbers as they were only a few years ago? This is the gull that hangs around McDonald’s parking lot scavenging spilled french fries and other morsels.
Now that I mention it, you will probably recall that the gulls would commute each day by the thousands from Lake Ontario, inland to farm country to follow the plough as it turned up worms, grubs and other delicacies. And watched them return to the lakeshore every evening, regular as clockwork. You don’t see those numbers today.Agricultural practices have changed. Farmers do not cultivate with the plough any more, they do not turn the soil over; but have adopted a technique called ‘no till’ farming.
The unintended consequence of this change was to alter the life style of the ring-billed gulls that lost their easy pickings; but in many ways no-till farming has affected us all. It should help maintain our demanding life-style, while putting the brakes on, or at least tapping the pedal, on the increase of carbon dioxide that threatens us with ‘global warming'.
Turning the soil over with ploughshare, coulter and mouldboard exposes the buried soil to oxygen which enables stored organic carbon to be released as carbon dioxide. In no-till farming the carbon is retained to enrich the soil and not contribute to the carbon/climate crisis.
Ploughing the traditional way eradicated perennial weeds but also brought to the surface weed seeds that had long lay dormant. In a no-till regime the weeds are killed by a herbicide; usually glyphosate; best known as Roundup.
Using a disk to cut a slit into the remains of the previous crop and with tractor attachments, a seed is dropped in the cut with a little fertilizer and the narrow furrow closed. Not only does this save on the cost of fertilizer but does not contribute to excessive run-off that ends up in the river.
Where conditions require it, cover crops and green manure are grown so that the soil is never bare and so is protected from erosion by wind or water. In this system such crops are not dug under but finely chopped, shredded and spread evenly over the field. This mulching of the soil suppresses weed growth and prevents evaporation of moisture. The decaying bio-mass eventually adds its nutrients to the soil and enhances the soil structure.
World-wide, there are now over 100 million hectares being cultivated using this no-till protocol, mostly in South America and Asia with North America now catching up. Remember that all those hectares are now sequestering carbon rather than releasing it.
Some people frown on the use of Roundup herbicide and where labour is under-valued and available such work can be done by hand; but that’s the hard way. As crops are grown to continue adding to the mulch the need for using Roundup should become less.
I have no objections to using Monsanto’s Roundup. It is a wonderful product and a boon to agriculture. I am not frightened by it. In full disclosure I confess that I like to eat and hope to continue doing so for a while longer.
Ask any Ontario farmer about this and I think that they would tell you that they don’t miss the seagulls at all and that Roundup is greatest thing since sliced bread.
