Low precipitation last growing season resulted in a big adoption of lower disturbance seeding practices. Many producers who saw first-hand last year the soil degradation of too much tillage and the soil conservation and moisture saving benefits of standing stubble knew they could not afford to put off the change to direct seeding.
In the northeast there has continued to be a slow but sure shift to low disturbance seeding the last number of years. As individual farms needed to change seeding equipment or saw the benefits of cutting back on labour or tillage equipment, there were gradual acreage shifts. But for the 2002 growing season there has been a very significant increase in direct seeded acres. These acreage changes are largest in areas where yields were cut significantly by drought conditions during last growing season.. Producers have heard the message long enough and knew what they needed to do to keep their soil at home. They also knew that should they face another dry spring, they could conserve precious soil moisture by cutting out tillage. This dry windy spring we have just gone through in the northern grain belt of Sask. has reinforced these very concepts. Even the shortage of capital expected from these dried out areas in the 2001 growing season could not stem this significant shift to direct seeding. Probably if anything, it caused it to swell as producers decided that if they were going to play the game, they better play it to the best of their ability which meant lower disturbance seeding.
Several environmental circumstances made it easier for those making this switch to make even last minute decisions a success. First, we had low quantities of residue to deal with in most places because of the dry 2001 growing season. Producers seeded right into standing stubble without worrying about how they had handled the residue. Second, this spring stayed cold throughout most of the seeding season and there was just no point in doing the normal pre-seeding burn down. Third, many soil tests were coming back with high soil N levels making it easier to safely seed-place all the required fertilizer with relatively narrow openers.
Now that this switch has been made, it is likely that the benefits of direct seeding will keep many of these acres under a low disturbance seeding system even when moisture levels return to normal. It is important to remember that some of the main principles or "pillars" (as SSCA calls them) of direct seeding will still apply in most years.
One principle to remember is that there are great benefits to managing residue properly. Nowadays, most of the newest direct seeding equipment can handle quite heavy residue without bunching. For those running retrofitted seeding tools, handling residue properly is still important, especially if we return to more normal moisture levels. Even in dry years, getting whatever residue is produced spread evenly across the field will ensure more even seeding conditions. Getting that chaff spread out somewhat behind the combine has significant benefits no matter what seeding system you are in. Following the rule of "no piece of loose residue longer than the effective shank spacing on your drill" still fits for most seeding tools. Even if the residue is attached stubble, the rule probably applies for high disturbance openers but for low disturbance openers you will be able to stretch this rule to 1.5 times or maybe a bit more. If you are harrowing in your system, I certainly question the need for harrowing when low amounts of residue are produced. Harrowing during a dry spring certainly increases the potential for dust to be blowing off your field. Heavy harrows have a fit for managing heavy residue or soils that crust and crack but they are very aggressive and in dry conditions, they can make the soil very vulnerable to blowing.
To make low disturbance direct seeding work, you must be prepared to do a pre-seeding burn-off and some in crop pre-harvest and or post-harvest Round-up application. Most years there are going to be benefits from the burn-off on all or at least part of your spring seeded acreage. This spring was rather unique in that hardly any Roundup was applied pre-seed. Only a few acres received a post-seed burn-off. As a result, it is already evident that dandelions and some quack grass have benefited from this missed burn off. The way to hedge against this kind of a spring, where growing conditions are just not conducive to a burn-off, is to continue to pre-harvest 1/4 to 1/3 of your acreage in rotation every year. If this doesn't work for you, try to make up the difference with some post harvest Round-up application. Direct seeders comment that these fields may not need a burn-off especially if they are seeded earlier in the growing season. In circumstances where neither a burn off or the Round-up application in the fall was possible, try to keep your dirtiest fields in crops which have options for aggressive in-crop control of the hard-to-kill weeds such as dandelions, quack grass, Canada thistle, sow thistle and hawk's beard.
Coming into this dry spring, the goal of many producers was to keep some stubble standing and not stretch their budget too far. For some, that meant changing from full sized sweeps on their air seeder to cutoff sweeps or spoons. This enabled them to reduce the amount of soil disturbance by 25 to 50%, taking their chances on getting enough packing out of coil packers. It seems that this was relatively successful if the coil packers were used without harrows. Harrowing this spring tended to pulverize enough dirt to set up the opportunity for soil to blow.
Whatever seeding tool producers used to lower soil disturbance at seeding time, it is expected that most of these acres will continue to be direct seeded as the many benefits of low disturbance seeding were experienced first-hand. Following some of the recommendations listed will put new direct seeders in an even better situation to take advantage of less soil disturbance in their seeding systems!