Dr. Dwayne L. Beck and Ron Doerr

Many of you are familiar with the Dakota Lakes Research Farm, others are hearing the name for the first time. For that reason a short summary of the concept behind the station and the operational procedures being used is being included at the end of this paper. For those among you who are more concerned with the results being obtained in the research program at Dakota Lakes and how these can be used to help in your decision making process; those issues will be addressed first. It is important to note that the research program at the Dakota Lakes Research Farm is largely a continuation of work begun nearly 10 years ago at the recently closed JamesValley Research Center near Redfield, South Dakota.

The present research program began, as many did in the early 80's, by attempting to make comparisons between types of tillage. After several years and many projects, the results can be summarized quite simply: no-till prevented soil erosion; saved fuel; improved organic matter; reduced labor and machinery costs; and, most importantly, increased the amount of water available to the crop by reducing losses to runoff and evaporation. The troubling aspect was that these positive aspects did not always lead to increased crop yield or enhanced profitability. At times yield and/or profitability were improved, but in either cases one, or both, were poorer under no-till than when tillage was used. Many causes were identified for the lack of performances of no-till when it occurred. These included inadequate stand, poor weed control, disease pressure, insect problems, etc. It became quite clear that taking advantage of the obvious strengths offered by no-till was going to entail much more than simply replacing tillage operations with herbicide inputs. Tillage based systems had resulted from centuries of trial and error; fine tuned by over a century of scientific research on the prairies of North America. Consequently, farming practices were designed to take advantage of the positive aspects of tillage. It is not surprising that eliminating only that one component, while leaving everything else the same, at times resulted in spectacular disasters. In fact, it is more surprising that no-till out performed tillage as often as it did when compared in this manner. For these reasons, substantial effort has been directed in the last 8-10 years to developing farming systems designed specifically to take advantage of the strengths of no-till while minimizing the negative aspects of not doing tillage.

Taking this approach to no-till has resulted in the development of a series of guidelines or concepts to be used by farmers in designing no-till systems for use in their specific situations. It has not resulted in recipes. A recipe that works on one farm may not work on an adjacent farm due to differences in equipment, soils, rotations, management skill of the operator, etc. It surely will not work on a farm several hundred miles away. It would not be prudent to attempt to outline all the concepts that have been developed in this paper. That was done last year and it added 45 pages to the proceedings. A booklet entitled NO-TILL GUIDELINES FOR THE ARID AND SEMIARID PRAIRIES is presently in its second publication and covers in detail many of the concepts developed for no-till systems. This booklet is being made available through the Manitoba-North Dakota Zero Till Association or by contacting the Dakota Lakes Research Farm; P.O. Box 2, Pierre, S.D., USA 57501. It serves as an excellent starting point (along with material like the Zero-Till Manual produced by the ManDak organization) in developing an understanding of the entire no-till system. This understanding is extremely valuable in terms of limiting the number of expensive mistakes made in designing systems that work in your situation. Simply taking someone else I recipe and using it in your operation is destined to fail. Conventional farming is not done this way. Everyone uses slightly different techniques, varieties, machinery, etc., successful no-tiller's will adopt their own style also.

Does this mean that you cannot learn from other no-tiller's mistakes and successes? Certainly not. A smart man learns from his experiences, a wise man learns from other people's experiences. The important difference in the systems approach vs. the recipe approach is to be able to determine WHY the procedure used by someone else either failed or succeeded; and how that relates to its potential use in your operation. Some information may translate directly; other techniques may produce totally opposite results under differing conditions.

The easiest way to begin understanding a no-till system is to start with some basic principles of crop production. Every farmer since man started to cultivate crops used a combination of three factors in his system. Those three factors are Tillage, Technology, and Management. Early farmers in North America used very little tillage; animal power was not introduced until the Europeans arrived less than 500 years ago. They employed a surprising amount of technology in the form of plant breeding and yes, even herbicide and insecticide use. But most importantly they relied on management approaches involving extensive rotation and good sanitation. They also employed substantial amounts of mixed cropping to maximize the ability of desirable plants to compete with the undesirable weeds. Current conventional tillage farming practices in North America rely heavily on tillage and technology; with little emphasis placed on the cultural practice aspects of management. This is especially true as it relates to rotation. Producers attempting to farm organically rely heavily on tillage and cultural practice related management techniques in order to eliminate the part of the technology component which deals with pesticides and fertilizers. No-till farmers will likewise find that the management aspects of the farming system are much more important once tillage has been eliminated.

In the past, attempts were made to no-till simply by eliminating tillage and relying on increased use of technology with little or no change in cultural practices, specifically rotation. This was at best too expensive and at worst a total failure. Affordable, appropriate technology was not always available. Even more importantly this approach failed to capitalize on the largest advantage no-till has to offer producers in the dry regions; increased moisture. The rotations used by conventional tillage farmers in an area were arrived at through trial and error to be ones that produced adequate yields in all but the driest years. Using no-till with these rotations aided crop yields in dry years but did little or nothing in normal to wet years. In fact, both the yield and profitability of the no-till was often reduced in normal to wet years because of problems which arose with weeds, diseases, or insects as the result of using a rotation not designed for use with no-till. This was especially true in many of the research projects conducted to evaluate tillage. By design, they kept everything the same except tillage, but used rotations developed for use under tilled conditions. This paper is going to deal with three important topics included in Management: Rotation, Competition, and Sanitation.

ROTATIONS

Since rotations play such a critical role in no-till, a few of the basic considerations involved in rotational planning will be outlined briefly. The No-Till Guidelines booklet mentioned earlier has a very detailed treatment of this subject. Several aspects of a potential rotation need to be analyzed. The main ones deal with water, weeds, insects, diseases, timing, markets, profitability, equipment and adaptability. This is further complicated by having to factor in potential differences in U.S. government farm program benefits or Canadian GRIP costs and returns. Although all of these factors are important, the one overriding factor for most farmers on the prairie is water. No-till will provide more water than tilled systems, consequently, it needs rotations which are more intense than those now used. A very striking demonstration of this concept is found in the results of a long term no-till rotation study conducted near Redfield, South Dakota.

Rainfall in the Redfield area varies substantially from year to year. Table I which outlines rainfall for the period from 1987 through 1991. Average total precipitation is 18.51 inches, but varied from less than 12 to over 25 inches per year during this period. Soils in this area are quite good; being relatively heavy in texture and have high water holding capacity. Since rainfall and temperature both affect the amount of effective precipitation received in an area, it is always valuable to base comparisons between areas on the type of native vegetation present and the rotations used under conventional tillage. Redfield is in the transition zone between tall grass and short grass prairie. Typical rotations with conventional tillage consist of two years of small grain followed by corn or sunflowers rotated back to spring small grain or fallow. Since corn will produce little or no grain in dry years, under conventional tillage; it is utilized mainly by growers with livestock who can harvest it for forage. Some producers use rotations consisting entirely of small grains. In fact, before chisels and discs replaced the moldboard plow, almost all rotations consisted of continuous small grains.

Table 1. No-till Rotation Study

Seven rotations were utilized in this study reflecting different degrees of water use intensity and varying amounts of diversity. This study was all done no-till, on a field scale basis, utilizing standard field equipment and techniques available to farmers. Profitability of each rotation was calculated by using actual costs or custom rates for all inputs (including land cost, drying, transportation, etc.) and market price the day of harvest for income. The extreme diversity in weather during the time period from 1987 to 1991 presents an excellent opportunity to evaluate the long-term stability of these rotations in terms of both yield and profitability. Table 2 presents average yields over the period from 1988 to 1991.

Table 2. Average Yields for the Wheat Commission No-till Rotation Study. 1988 through 1991

*Average for 1988-1990 only. Treatments seeded to flax in 1991.

The most striking feature of the average yields obtained over this period of time is the relatively good yields of corn and soybeans obtained in an area which is much drier than what is generally considered desirable for their production. Even the very dry years produced adequate yields. This is demonstrated by table 4 showing lowest yields obtained for each crop in each rotation, over this period. The difference in soybeans following wheat and soybeans following corn was not great on average, but was very predictable in dry years. The high yield levels attained in all "good" year, as delineated in table 3, were also excellent. Another definite finding was the difference in wheat yield when it was seeded following wheat, as compared to when it followed other crops. Other very interesting results include the 10 to 12 bu. more corn that resulted when it followed wheat as compared to following soybean. This is due to the increased moisture available behind wheat. In cooler, moister, areas; little difference or greater yield behind soybean would be expected. Likewise, in drier areas greater benefit would be expected for high water use crops following small grains. It should be noted that the highest yields of all crops did not always occur in the wettest year (1991) nor did the lowest yields all occur in the driest year, although that was generally the case.

Table 3: Highest Yields for the Wheat Commission No-till Rotation Study 1988-1991

Table 4. Lowest Yields for the Wheat Commission No-till Rotation Study. 1988-1991

Rotation Number

The role played by the preceding crop can be seen more clearly when presented as it is in tables 5 through 8.

Table 5. EFFECT OF PREVIOUS CROP 0N YIELDS OF CORN

AVERAGE 1988-1991 AT REDFIELD, SOUTH DAKOTA

CORN FOLLOWING WHEAT 101

CORN FOLLOWING SOYBEANS 90

Table 6. EFFECT OF PREVIOUS CROP ON YIELDS OF SOYBEAN

AVERAGE 1988-1991 AT REDFIELD, SOUTH DAKOTA

SOYBEAN FOLLOWING WHEAT 42

Table 7. EFFECT OF PREVIOUS CROP ON FIELDS OF SPRING WHEAT

AVERAGE 1988-1991 AT REDFIELD, SOUTH DAKOTA

SPRING WHEAT FOLLOWING SOYBEAN 36

SPRING WHEAT FOLLOWING BARLEY 39

SPRING WHEAT FOLLOWING W. WHEAT 33

Table 8. EFFECT OF PREVIOUS CROP ON YIELDS OF WINTER WHEAT

AVERAGE 1988-1991 AT REDFIELD, SOUTH DAKOTA

WINTER WHEAT FOLLOWING BARLEY 39

WINTER WHEAT FOLLOWING FALLOW 42

WINTER WHEAT FOLLOWING S. WHEAT 34

In any farming system, but especially in no-till, one needs to look at the whole rotation not just one component at a time. The highest yields of the crops often occurred in rotations that showed less profitability than rotations producing lower yields (see table 9). For instance, even though the lowest average yield of corn occurred behind soybeans and the lowest average yield of soybeans occurred behind corn; the most profitable rotation during this period was the corn soybean rotation (when calculated using the method outlined earlier). I farm program considerations, work load spreading benefits, different commodity prices etc. are factored in; other rotations may be more profitable under different situations.

Table 9. Average, Best, and Worst Profitability of Each Rotation

1988-1991 Wheat Commission No-till Rotation Study.

The important thing to remember is that this study was done all no-till. Earlier studies had shown that the small grain based rotations traditionally used with conventional tillage in this area (corn-barley-wheat, wheat-barley, or corn-fallow-wheat would be examples) benefited from no-till only during drier than normal years from a yield standpoint. Even then the disease and weed problems that developed often more than offset these yield increases when it came to profitability. In other words, there was plenty of water for these rotations most years under a tilled situation. If not the farmers would not have been using them. The more intense rotations included in this study (and being utilized by no-tillers in the region were designed to better take advantage of the moisture savings associated with no-till.

A good no-till rotation must do more than add intensity; it also has to help control weeds, diseases, and insects. In other words it has to add diversity. Diversity in crop type is achieved by rotations with a mix of broadleaf and grass crops; and crops with varied optimum planting and harvesting dates. A good rotation also allows use of herbicide programs with several differing modes of action at various points in the rotation to prevent development of herbicide tolerant weed biotypes. It also allows for workload spreading. This will minimize labor and machinery costs, while still assuring the crops are planted in a timely fashion. If the previous considerations were taken into account in the economic analysis of this study, the Spring Wheat-Corn-Soybean rotation would produce much better profitability and the Corn-Soybean and Soybean-Spring Wheat rotations would have performed less well than with the methods used. In the real world, the three-way rotation would allow use of smaller equipment on the same number of acres farmed, or would allow increasing acreage by 50% with the same size equipment as compared to systems using the two-way rotations. Weed, insect, and disease control are also much more of a concern in short rotations.

In looking for crops to add diversity and intensity to a rotation factor such as adaptability, profitability, marketability, and equipment come into play. The logical choices for the situation at Redfield were corn and soybeans. They were being grown successfully in the area under irrigation. They also were being grown in regions to the east having a similar climate, with higher rainfall. Excellent herbicide programs are available for both of the crops and they could be readily marketed locally through normal channels. Soybeans require no specialized equipment since the same drill and flex header can be used for both soybean and small grain. Corn requires specialized seeding and harvesting equipment, but the Research Center and many farmers in the area already owned this equipment for use on irrigated acres or in good years with conventional tillage. (Some producers have modified their drills to seed corn in rows.) The soybeans also added one more benefit. They are legumes capable of fixing atmospheric nitrogen for their own needs and supplying part of the N required for subsequent crops. Think of them as green manure crops that make a profit while reducing the cost of producing a subsequent crop. Careful examination of table 9 produces some interesting observations. The three most profitable rotations all contained soybeans. These rotations produced the best profits during both the good and bad years covered by the study. In fact, the lowest profit exhibited by the two best rotations was better than the best profit exhibited by the four "conventional" rotations. The conventional rotations did not perform poorly because they contained small grain; but rather they lacked diversity and intensity. Use of the intense rotations with conventional tillage would have resulted in extremely poor yields or total failure in the dry years at Redfield, and only adequate yields in the wet years.

One of the secrets to the extremely good profitability shown by these intense rotations is that land cost at Redfield are somewhat less than would be common in more humid areas where corn and soybean based rotations are utilized under conventional tillage. This factor puts producers in the drier areas at a competitive advantage to those farther east IF, precipitation in these drier areas is used more efficiently. Think of it as being the Wal-Mart of soybeans, the K-mart of Corn, or Brazil del norte (north).

Does this mean soybeans and corn will find a home under dryland conditions at Brandon, Regina, Medicine Hat, or Minot? (Dave Major and Blair Roth have been studying that question in southern Alberta for several years.) It is too early to tell. Perhaps other crops will fit better. Northern growers have choices not available to farmers way down in SOUTH Dakota. As producers in these regions begin to no-till; climatic, marketing, aid equipment factors will dictate the crops they choose in designing rotations with more intensity and diversity than the rotations presently used.

COMPETITION

Maximizing the ability of the crop to compete successfully for a survival with weeds, diseases, and insects is another component of management which can be (and needs to be) more effectively used by no-tillers than by their neighbors who do tillage. This principle takes several forms. Only a few basics will be touched on in this article. A more complete treatment is found in the No-Till Guidelines pamphlet. Rotations with a great deal of intensity are inherently better competitors with weeds because a crop is present on the land more often or for long periods of the summer. This is a very, important, factor in controlling perennial weeds. Other important factors contributing to the competitiveness of the crop are increasing seeding rates (more moisture is available) as compared to those used in conventional tillage; placing starter fertilizer with or near the seed; using a drill with excellent depth control capabilities (both designed to provide a faster start by the crop); and doing little or no disturbance while seeding (to prevent planting weed seeds). With some crops, in some rotations, in certain locations, clearing part of the residue from the seed zone speeds soil warming and emergence of the crop. This should be done without disturbing the soil. The desirability of the last concept helps to explain the popularity of hoe drills in areas where no-till, continuous, small grain predominates. Unfortunately, the soil disturbance created in the process and the lack of depth control with many of these machines often creates problems which offset the advantages of clearing residue. A better approach is to design rotations where crops sensitive to cold soils are seeded following crops with dark colored residues. Crops less sensitive to cool soils are planted into heavy, light-colored, residues.

It should also be recognized 24 that some crops are inherently more competitive than others. Winter wheat and rye rank very high in this category. It is not unusual for winter wheat grown at Dakota Lakes in a rotation where it follows flax, safflower, field pea, or lentil; to not require any herbicide treatment. This is partially due to the competitiveness of winter wheat, partially due to the rotation's effect on weed pressure, and partially due to having done a good job of controlling weeds following harvest of the previous crop. Similarly spring, small grains in good, diverse, rotations containing broadleaf crops have never required treatment for wild oats or foxtail (wild millet). These are both common, troublesome weeds in the area. Continuous small grain rotations have an abundance of these weeds both because of the lack of rotation and because the wheat crop is slower getting started in the spring when it follows another small grain as compared to when it follows soybeans, flax, peas, etc.

SANITATION

The final aspect of management which is extremely important to no-tillers is sanitation. Anything that prevents introduction of weed seeds, insects, and diseases into the field, or prevents them from becoming established is included in this category. This involves several practices with only the basics covered here. One of the most important sanitation practices deals with weed seeds. Use only weed-free seed; clean combines and seeders between fields; mow borders and waterways before the plants go to seed; and spray stubble before the weeds present go to seed. Similar practices apply to diseases and insects with special emphasis on breaking the cycles of these pests by removing host plants. Spot spraying of perennial patches is also extremely important. Control of perennial weeds has been very easy in no-till with proper use of rotation, sanitation, and competition.

TECHNOLOGY

If you can still remember the opening remarks dealing with the three components of a farming system: TILLAGE, TECHNOLOGY, and MANAGEMENT you will realize the first nine pages of this paper have been devoted to the management aspects. The reasons for this are: technology capable of overcoming management errors is not always available; is not always cost effective; nor is not always as environmentally safe. This does not mean that technology does not play a very important role. Its use is a necessity in no-till. Technology is not limited to herbicide, fertilizers, etc. but also includes things such as applicators which sense the presence of weeds and sprays only them, not the whole field; fertilizer applicators which vary rates on the go; seeders that allow the crop to be more competitive; improved varieties; etc. It should always be remembered that technology should be used to supplement good management; to make farming more profitable; and to assure that what is being done is as environmentally friendly as possible. It should not, and can not, be used as a substitute for good management in a no-till system.

Appropriate use of high technology is the only factor that will allow farmers in North America to compete in a global market. Labor and energy costs associated with organic farming systems, which prohibit use of certain technological inputs with no regard to their safety, will mean a loss of competitiveness in relation to countries where people are willing to work for $5 per day or less.

The validity and applicability of research projects is sometimes extremely difficult to judge until long after the project is completed and the scientists involved are dead. Will the concepts presented in this paper be accepted by farmers and will it help them become more profitable? Soybean production in the area where this research was conducted has increased dramatically in the last 10 years. In Spink and Brown counties acreage has increased from 8,700 acres in 1981 to 84,200 acres in 1987 to 138,000 acres in 1990 and a projected 190,000 acres in 1991. Almost all of these acres are being managed as part of no till rotations including small grains (primarily spring wheat) and corn. This growth in the use of intense crop rotations coincides with one of the driest periods in recorded history. If it wasn't working, the farmers would have abandoned the system by now. The 2,000% increase in soybean acreage in Brown and Spink counties in the last 10 years indicates that the results of this research are not only valid; they are being applied.

One final important point needs to be made. There are two things that farmer's on the prairies cannot afford to waste: water and topsoil. There is too little of both. No-till offers a way to save these resources, preserve thin environment, and, just as importantly, make a living while doing so. It will require a higher level of management than tillage based systems but, if it approached from a systems management point of view it can be extremely rewarding.

DAKOTA LAKES RESEARCH FARM

The Dakota Lakes Research Farm is a field station operated by South Dakota State University. In that respect is very similar to branch research stations throughout the U.S. and Canada. There is one important distinction that makes Dakota Lakes different than most other research centers; it is owned by farmers. To be more precise the physical facilities (land, building, etc.) are owned by a nonprofit corporation whose membership consists of farmers and others in agribusiness. This corporation raised the funds to purchase the land and construct the facilities necessary to operate a field station. They rent these facilities to South Dakota State University for a minimal fee. They also play a very active role in developing the focus of the research and demonstration program at the farm through the corporation's Board of Directors and an appointed Research Advisory Committee with representatives from various segments of the agricultural community in South Dakota.

The road has not been easy and the journey is not done. The corporation was organized in 1981 and spent almost 10 years attempting to find a suitable location and raise sufficient capital to purchase it. The 468 acres of land was purchased in 1989, a steelshop/office building completed in early 1990, irrigation equipment on a portion of the farm installed by July 1990, and basic operational status attained in 1991. The 1992 season will see an increase in the amount of small-plot research being conducted on the main station and the initiation of a new, field-scale, no-till, rotation study on a half section of dryland located on the west side of the Missouri River about 30 miles from the main station. This will bring the total farmland area to about 450 acres of dryland and 250 acres of irrigation, the remainder being in buildings, roads, and grass areas.

The corporation provides no direct, operational, support at this time. Their role is to raise capital for completing and improving the facility. The major contributors to capital improvements have been the farmer controlled commodity groups (Corn Council, Wheat Commission, Soybean Council, Crop Improvement Association, and Oilseeds Council) and the agribusiness sector. The initial $250,000 in private contributions to the corporation for purchasing the land and developing the facilities was matched by a grant from the Governor's Office of Economic Development.

South Dakota State University provider; a Research Manager, three technicians, and a half-time secretary plus approximately $60 to $80 thousand a year to support research and obtain equipment. To put this in perspective, the cash subsidy is only slightly more than the farm could generate in federal farm program payments if it were considered eligible for benefits (which it is not). The remaining operational funds come from research grants targeted to a specific project, and from revenues generated from the sale of crops. Most of the research grants also stem from the commodity organizations listed above and consequently are very field oriented. Researchers from the main campus at Brookings and the USDA Northern Grain Insects Laboratory also have projects at Dakota Lakes. The research farm provides all formal inputs and labor for these projects and also collects data, etc. to the extent possible. The projects supply specialized inputs and perform tasks which require equipment not owned by the research farm.

Future plans include renting an additional two quarters of dryland on the east side of the Missouri. This will result in a final acreage of around 1000 acres. This will include parcels representing irrigation on the river terrace soils; dryland on terrace soils; dryland on heavy clay, soils developed from shale; irrigation on heavy, clay, soils developed from shale; and dryland on glacial till soils in the uplands. Facility improvement goals include building machinery storage and living quarter facilities on the main station. It may be another 10 years before these goals are reached. In the interim the staff will continue to pursue a program designed to optimize management of no-till systems.