Paraplowing & beans on steep
COSHOCTON, Ohio - Crops of
soybeans and crops will rotate
after chisel plowing, paraplowing
and no plowing on steep slopes at
the USDA North Appalachian
Experimental Watershed starting
in 1984.
The beans and paraplow will be
tried for the first time on slopes as
steep as 18 percent in the
Agricultural Research Service
Watershed, says C. R. Amerman,
location leader.
“Soybeans are rarely grown on
steep lands because past ex
periences with conventional tillage
show severe erosion losses,”
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Amerman says. “New technology
may eliminate the erosion problem
as the reason for limiting soybean
production to nearly flat lands. For
instance, the para plow
shatters soil below the surface
without turning it over and without
destroying the surface mulch.”
The 6-year conservation tillage
study will be conducted by
scientists of the Ohio State
University - Ohio Agricultural
Research and Development
Center, Wooster, Ohio, and Ex
perimental Watershed scientists
here. The Ohio scientists
cooperated in U.S. trials of the
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Purpose of the research is to
study conservation tillage
systems, including fertility,
diseases, pests, machinery and
losses of'water, soil and chemicals
from slopes in corn-soybean
rotations, Amerman says, and “to
evaluate yields of corn and
soybeans nnder conservation
tillage practices in steep water
sheds.
“A major restriction to land use
may be lifted if we can demon
strate control of water, soil and
chemical losses froni hillsides. If
we can not demonstrate this
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slopes to be studied
control, we can caution farmers
against trying to bring the corn
soybean rotation into the hills.”
Some scientists say conservation
tillage, especially reduced tillage,
offers advantages in many
locations, including flat lands,
where it has not been tried. “My
firm belief is that no-till or ridge-
UU with surface residue is feasible
on any soil in the Corn Belt,” says
William C. Moldenhauer, research
leader at ttfe National Soil Erosion
Laboratory, Purdue University,
He says farmers can use no-till on
well drained sods and “make
ndge-till with surface residue
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work even on the subsurface
drained, dark colored prairie soils
in Illinois, Indiana and Nor
thwestern Ohio, on Clarion-
Webster soils in lowa and Min
nesota, and on well drained soils
where temperatures are a problem
in the spring.”
Amerman says more than 40
years of studying tillage on the
contour and up, down and across
slopes at the Experimental
Watershed, including almost 20
years of growing corn without
tillage, provide a basis for the
corn-soybean rotation research.
On July 5,1969, for example, a rain
storm moved more than 36 tons of
soil from 1.61 acre, poor-practice
field that had been plowed and
tilled across a 7 percent slope. The
topsoil from a single acre, 45,300
pounds, would have loaded an 18-
wheel, semitrailer truck.
The 63 pounds of topsoil from an
acre of untilled com in contoured
rows on a 21 percent slopw might
have overloaded a little man with a
big scoop shovel. Soil eroded from
clean-tilled com in contoured rows
on a 6 percent slope weighted 6,430
pounds an acre loads for 100 big
men with big shovels.
With only 5 years of research on
“no-till” com, the ARS scientists
thought the July 1969 results “too
good to be true,” says William M.
Edwards. “Although these results
are impressive," he and another
Watershed researcher wrote in
1972, “one cannot conclude that
continuous no-till com is possible
on such steep slopes without the
threat of serious erosion ... Two
more com years have passed with
no erosion (from the no-till plot)
but the watersheds have not been
subjected to any additional severe
storms.”
Severe storms are infrequent,
but they cause the most damage
and accent the erosion difference
between clean tillage and no tillage
on slopes. “The 10 worst storms in
40 years, for example, or the 10
worst of 1000 may cause 90 percent
of the erosion during the
measuring period,” Edwards says.
Soil loss from the 10 biggest storms
(Turn to Page A 33)