Organic no-till farming touted for carbon capture

The new administration is trying to sell farmers on the idea they can reap billions in income for capturing carbon in a cap-and-trade system to limit greenhouse-gas emissions. A research center says it has developed a farming method that can capture more carbon in the ground than any other farming method. The non-profit Rodale Institute in Kutztown, Pa., says that if no-till organic farming "were used successfully on all of the earth’s 3.5 billion tillable acres, it would absorb and sequester more than half of all present-day CO2 emissions every year," writes Jared Flesher for The Christian Science Monitor.

After an experiment almost two decades ago inadvertently led to the growth of crops on untilled farmland, researchers realized that the process held great potential. "Everybody stood there and looked at it and went, 'Wow, you did organic no-till,'" says Jeff Moyer, the institute's farm director. "So we’ve spent the last 18 years trying to figure out a system that will allow us to replicate that accident over and over and over again." They eventually developed a roller-crimper that knocks down the cover weeds at exactly the right time for the cash crops to be planted.

Economics also play into some farmers' decisions to convert to organic no-till. Flesher writes, "Organic crops sell for more than conventionally raised ones, while no-till cuts down on tractor use, reducing a farmer’s fuel and labor costs." But the Rodale Institute acknolwedges that, after a few years of organic no-till, tilling is necessary to get rid of more aggressive weeds that will start to pop up. They also note that it works better with some crops than others.

Lee Burras, a soil scientist at Iowa State University, says the farming method would help but would not be a long-term solution. “My own work shows [that] the more beat-up [the soil] is to begin with, the better response you get subsequently with carbon sequestration,” Burras says. “But after 10 years, 20 years, maybe it’s 50 years, we’re going to plateau out.” (Read more)