Article DetailsMulch Tillage For Agricultural Efficiency in Europe |
| Date Added: May 21, 2011 03:20:44 AM |
| Author: Pal Farkas, Ph.D. |
| Category: Business & Economy |
| Our fast-paced world is giving us new challenges every day and the European agriculture industry is no exception. The need to cope with climate change, the requirement to serve an ever increasing demand for food, the rising energy prices and the recently appeared demand for bio-fuel crops combined are giving a complex challenge to this industry: larger crop yields need to be achieved more efficiently in more adverse conditions. Developments aimed at meeting these demands include new crop varieties, new equipment and new approaches to agricultural production just to name a few. One such new approach is mulch tillage, which has much to offer the industry especially with regards to efficiency and long-term land productivity. Mulch tillage is a conservation tillage method, in which high yield production is achieved through the preservation and improvement of soil quality. The primary implement for mulch tillage is the so-called mulch cultivator that is used for stubble management and seedbed preparation (usually in a single pass) following the harvest. The mulch cultivator cuts the residue left on the stubble and incorporates part of it in the root zone and uses the rest to create a protective layer of residue on the topsoil. The benefits of its use are manifold: (i) soil quality is increased by the recycling of organic matter in the root zone as the residue gradually decomposes; (ii) the residue mixed into the topsoil increases the water absorption retention capacity of the soil, helping it to cope with prolonged extreme seasonal conditions; (iii) the mulch layer on the topsoil protects against overheating a drying of the topsoil as well as against erosion inducing factors such as wind and heavy rainfall. By mitigating the effects of climate change and improving the vital nutrition content of the topsoil in these ways, farmers can tackle the challenges of achieving high levels of long-term land productivity in the in today’s changing climate. As it is a form of minimum tillage, mulch cultivation is also a useful approach for tackling the rising costs of energy. It may allow savings on tillage related fuel costs in excess of 50% due to the reduced number of passes in the field. Mulch tillage will prove especially relevant in Europe as the continent copes with a relative shortage of arable land, which greatly influences agricultural practices. As opposed to North American farming practices, where the amount of land in agricultural production allows even zero tillage production, European farmers have been historically keen to maximize their yield per hectare through intensive farming practices, which involve several tillage operations between harvesting and planting. Rather sooner than later, intensive agriculture will be abandoned for the following two reasons: (i) rising fuel prices will render this mode of cultivation economically unviable, and (ii) the excessive disturbance of the soil leaves the fields exposed to soil erosion, which is becoming an ever-greater threat to crop yields due to the extreme weather conditions brought by the ongoing changes in climate. In summary, the pressures brought by economic and climatic conditions will force farmers in Europe to make a shift towards a form of minimum tillage cultivation. As mulch tillage provides a solution these current economic and climatic challenges and at the same time allows the continuation of high-yield crop production in the long-run, mulch tillage has every chance to become the preferred mode of cultivation in the near future. Pal Farkas, Ph.D. is the author of this article on Vegetable Oil Pressing. Find more information on Vegetable Oil Technologies here. |
