Garden and agriculture: direct sowing VS plowing

Agriculture and soil. Pollution control, soil remediation, humus and new agricultural techniques.
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Did67
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Garden and agriculture: direct sowing VS plowing




by Did67 » 30/04/14, 10:00

Published by Remundo

Did67 tells us about his interesting experience of cultivation / garden without "plowing".

Related topic: farm machinery powered by humans
https://www.econologie.com/forums/materiels- ... 13225.html



I encourage gardening!


The real question is: why "work" the land?

It may be time that I put the photos of my gardening method called: "I garden in my deckchair, a glass of beer in my left hand and a good book in my right hand". [after I first gave up gardening after my heart attack; too much trouble to provide the "so much and so much energy to work my surface - in the 200 m²]

And I do this by "clearing" a natural meadow (which has been for 1 or 2 centuries?).

I have a few troublemakers (I have to "share" this space with field mice - or some other kind of unidentified rodent - which has not yet left ...

And I can not escape either the sowing / planting, or the harvest / harvest !!! What a job, which forces me to leave my deckchair!

And I garden "more than organic" since I ban (almost) any product - pesticides, fertilizers - including "certified organic" (except rare cases, where I use certified organic products; for example to save my seedlings against the slugs!; there, no mircale - in my deckchair, I'm not going to run after them, right?).

If that interests (I do not want to get drunk), I want to share the "method" (a very big word - it's just an addition of acts of "common sense") with bicycle-gardeners! The photos, I took some, it's just a bit of a mess on my DD. I only half promise!
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by Ahmed » 30/04/14, 12:23

Many good things have been said by Chatelot et Raimondo.

There is something paradoxical about wanting to go through a rotary movement and wheels in order to drive a machine which, itself, results from an adaptation * to the use of a thermal engine!
In addition to the loss of power, very damaging in view of the necessarily limited availability, the size and the very small maneuverability are to be taken into account (the latter points would be less important in supermarkets, but this case being unthinkable ...).
Another paradox is the systematic use of tillage, the abuse of which is one of the consequences of abundant energy that totally distorts the agronomic approach.

* Adaptation of tools originally towed directly by animals or humans.
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by Did67 » 30/04/14, 15:18

Grelinette wrote:
Le shared garden has not only a purpose of agricultural production, it is also a place of meeting and sharing allowing inhabitants of a district, who meet daily without knowing or talking to each other, to (re) create a link social. It is also very surprising to meet a volunteer coming to participate in gardening tasks and to realize that it is one's own neighbors!
So imagine: spend a few minutes in a group pedaling to garden ... it's the ideal situation to discuss and create a link.

Another very motivating point is to see the spectacular results obtained from farming methods that are now abandoned for reasons of intensive agriculture.

To return to "agricultural pedal tool"(whose purpose is not to compete the monsters of agricultural mechanics), and to quote the remark ofAhmedit is not a question of reproducing the methods of intensive agriculture, but more modestly of working the land on the surface.



Again, nothing against the experience ... !!!

but:

1) My god, why pedal rather than drink a beer or discuss a good book ???

2) for the agronomist that I am, all this does not explain to me why it would be necessary to "work" the land, even modestly ??? If it works without ...

[I have, of course, elements of answer to my own question; but it is on the dogma "it is necessary to work the land" that it is advisable to wonder if one wants "another agriculture". Why not respect these thousands and millions and billions of living beings, which we are going to turn upside down, or even destroy them?

It's a bit like saying, in response to the question "why the car?", "But we're going to drive slowly"!

But go ahead, pedal. It's very good for health. It's already huge.

And once the enthusiasm of all the "founders" has passed (I am part of that generation having seen "neo-rural people" found "communities"; today, with very very rare exceptions, the herb has grown. rejected), you might be asking yourself the right question ...

Very cordially. It's just to discuss. Not to deter.
Last edited by Did67 the 30 / 04 / 14, 15: 29, 1 edited once.
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by izentrop » 30/04/14, 23:11

Hello,
A little green manure, cartons spread on the ground before winter.
There is nothing left in the spring, the earth remains loose.
I only work the furrow area, to remove quackgrass and bindweed roots. Seeing all the earthworms I disturb without too much slaughter, I could not reuse the tiller.
No power tools in the garden ... Yes, the plant grinder.
Which one exists on pedals: Image http://www.ladepeche.fr/article/2011/09 ... u-brf.html

Did67, I would like to know your non-tillage methods. That's what I try to do in the garden, but it's not easy to manage.
Especially, weeds that grow faster than seedlings. There is the Soltner method, but they do not give more compost green waste in my community.
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by chatelot16 » 01/05/14, 00:34

it makes me think of the method to cut the mistletoe in asterix in Corsican: yes he waits for it to fall ... : Mrgreen:

Finally, more seriously, to cultivate without plowing, if it is possible, we must not deprive ourselves

but it would be necessary to understand everything: why did one plow so much at a time or it was more difficult than today?
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by Remundo » 01/05/14, 09:31

to increase yields : Idea:
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by izentrop » 01/05/14, 11:22

Remundo wrote:to increase yields : Idea:

No, for a sustainable environment, with inputs from recycled organic waste.
Without fighting against nature, but orienting it in our favor.
And for that, you need great knowledge.
It is not easy and little research is directed in this direction.

chatelot 16 wrote:Finally, more seriously, to cultivate without plowing, if it is possible, we must not deprive ourselves

It's serious http://agriculture-de-conservation.com/ ... abour.html
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by Remundo » 01/05/14, 11:43

the debate of pro-plowing and anti-plowing will never be decided ...

because both techniques have advantages and disadvantages ... None are ideal. I think we have to play on both sides without excess.

No doubt that shallow plowing (no more than 30 cm), perhaps alternated with years of no-till cultivation (sometimes called semi direct) ...

Because it feels good for the earth to be returned / aerated mechanically from time to time. it pulls weeds and it avoids the proliferation of certain parasites. it remixes crop waste, fertilizer and manure to soil humus.

Of course, you have to pay attention to the gulting / carrying of the earth by the wind, but the wind also brings back sometimes ...

As for the history of earthworms, plowing tends to increase their number (the small ones) ... except the big worms of depths.
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by Ahmed » 01/05/14, 12:03

Raimundo, you wrote :
To increase yields

The two major historical techniques of tillage are the araire in the southern countries and the plow in those more northern.
The plow only scratches the ground, which is sufficient under certain conditions; the plow makes it possible to bury weeds and introduced organic matter.
Note that the action of the plow remains superficial for a long time and has little to do with what we call plowing today.
The transition took place in the 18th century, at the birth of agricultural science: observations show that the yield increases with the depth of plowing, a practice now possible due to technical progress.
From this exact observation, a wrong conclusion will be drawn which would, with the concept of restitution (which will ensue from it), sustainably orient agriculture to the present day.
In reality, by carrying out more and more deep plowing, all that is done is to mobilize the entire reserve of humus which mineralizes and therefore gives up its components to the plants: clearly this method can only produce temporary results. and resulted in a very significant depletion of organic matter and transformed the living soil into a simple growing medium.
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by Ahmed » 01/05/14, 12:13

Plowing and all the work on the ground do not have the virtues that you describe, Raimundo, they are only the sign of successive crop failures, offset by the reiteration of these practices: of course, plowing decompens the soil, but meets the conditions for its rapid compaction.

As for the verse, which verse do you want to talk about? What sort of worms could resist these perpetual mechanical and chemical attacks, the systematic destruction of their food?
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