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Gettysburg, PA | I've lots of the same here. "gullies" in areas that have never been a problem and areas that had problems holding in the past have gotten worse. Much of what I've seen so far has been pretty wide and shallow washing or very narrow and shallow rills. Not sure what to really do with it all? Couldn't possibly consider waterways in all of these. I think much of the smaller stuff will mend itself. Most of washing I've see has been in soybean stubble. Can't say I've seen anything better or worse with no till. I think the erosion on tilled fields occured throughout the field and doesn't appears as obvious. In the no till the erosion is isolated in areas where concentrated flow occurs and appears much more obvious. I've seen two very clear needs after doing a little traveling around the county: cover crops-anything with a small grain cover that had any growth held well (how to get cc's established early enough is not easy) and strips - the worse erosion was in whole field sb stubble. Where contour strips are still present the erosion disappears near the strip boundry. I'm a strong advocate of agriculture so this isn't a jab at farmers when I say this, but, the bottom line is that farming is not natural, it has an inherent potential for pollution that simply can't be completely prevented try as you all might. It is the price we all pay for cheap and plentiful food. That being said, the use of cover crops and at minimum breaking fields up are two very doable and cheap things that all can consider to further lessen the impact of the extreme weather conditions we saw this winter. At some point the old "it was the wrong rain at the wrong time" excuse won't cut it anymore (at least around here). With all that being said, I wonder what the situation would have looked like without the large amount of no-till and cover cropping that was done. I KNOW that things have and will continue to improve. | |
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Topsoil loss this winter...........
