New way to farm boosts climate, too—‘Organic no-till’ combines best of two methods…

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2009/03/12/new-way-to-farm-boosts-climate-too/

New way to farm boosts climate, too

‘Organic no-till’ combines best of two methods and sequesters most carbon. But can it work consistently?

By Jared Flesher | Contributor of The Christian Science Monitor/ March 12, 2009 edition

Kutztown, Pa.

Some scientists say an ice age was prevented thousands of years ago by the dawn of http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C02E1DA1F3DF933A25751C1A9659C8B63">human agriculture – deforestation and farming released enough greenhouse gases into the atmosphere to prevent another global cool down, the theory goes.

Now, millennia later, researchers hope new farming techniques will put some of that carbon back into the ground and help stem the rising tide of global warming.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11951725">No-till agriculture, in which farmers don’t plow their fields anymore, is one practice said to promote carbon sequestration in the soil. Organic farming is another. Researchers here at the nonprofit http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/">Rodale Institute are now developing a hybrid “organic no-till” farming system that they say could sponge up more carbon than any other way of growing food.

The claim: If organic no-till agriculture were used successfully on all of the earth’s 3.5 billion tillable acres, it would absorb and sequester more than half of all present-day CO2 emissions every year, according to Rodale Institute research director Paul Hepperly.

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[MercutioATC]

1. Not a new concept. They've been doing it for at least 30 years.

Probably much longer, but I remember a farm near where I grew up doing it when I was a kid.

The problem is that yields are lower and it's harder to harvest in some cases.

[shraby]

3. The yields are lower because the surrounding

weeds and grass take moisture and nutrients from what the plant needs.

[Sal Minella]

2. "New?" Three words: Prairie grasses. Buffalo.

Minimum chemicals/pesticides/herbicides.
Maximum soil conservation, minimum surface water pollution.

Maximum protein yield from viewpoint of protein for humans.