Progress report for ONE24-445
Project Information
This project seeks to compare three organic tillage reduction
systems: Crimped Rye (CR), Clover Living Mulch System (CLMS), and
Crimped Rye & Clover (CR&C). These systems will be compared
and contrasted in four ways.
- Compare/contrast yields across the three systems.
- Compare/contrast tractor passes across the three systems.
- Compare/contrast key soil health indicators across the three
systems (using CASH tests and IFSHAs). - Gather qualitative data and photo documentation to create
case studies for each farm.
This project seeks to generate knowledge that will allow farmers
to make informed management decisions when trialing or adopting
these organic tillage reduction practices.
Tillage causes in situ economic and environmental harms by reducing above- and below-ground biodiversity, and increasing nutrient leaching and soil loss. It also involves a host of externalities, including increased GHG emissions, N, P and sediment pollution. Most tillage reduction relies on herbicides, which can negatively affect on- and off-farm biodiversity and water quality.
How can organic farmers reduce tillage while managing weeds and compaction, and remaining committed to cover cropping? In conversations and interviews with medium to large scale organic farmers, tillage reduction/no-till/min till often surfaces feelings of frustration, anger, confusion and/or despair. Most of these farmers chose to farm organically because they feel strongly that it is 'the right thing to do.' Their commitment to organic hasn't wavered, but the tillage their systems require is now viewed negatively by the larger community, and in some cases, by the farmers themselves. This proposal aims to support three medium- to large-scale organic growers as they explore tillage reduction. Generating and disseminating useful data is the primary goal of our proposal, but it also aims to create and support existing communities of scaled organic farmers as they reclaim their commitment “to honor the holistic connection among land, water, air, and all living beings.”
The three farmer-partners on this proposal have all done a significant amount of experimentation on their own. However, this study would fund more rigorous, planful, replicated side-by-side trials of three different methods that hold promise for scalable tillage reduction in organic systems. It would also compensate the farmers for their knowledge production and assist them in their valuable work at each step of the process. Collaboration with Momentum Ag will enable their efforts and results to be knit together into a useful and robust set of findings for other farmers.
Crimped Rye (CR) is generally the first (and often only) system that organic farmers use to reduce tillage at scale. While the system can be successful in more northerly latitudes, it was innovated in Southeast PA, and farmers further north frequently struggle with inadequate biomass production for weed control, cooler soil temperatures, and N tie-up. CR only reduces tillage by a few passes, because it often requires tillage for establishment, and more tillage post-harvest to establish the following cover crop. Relative to other scalable organic tillage reduction, however, it is the best studied, the most widely known, and roller crimpers can be easily purchased or rented.
The perennial Clover Living Mulch System (CLMS) offers management and ecosystem benefits that make it very appealing relative to CR. The clover can be established by interseeding into a prior cash crop, which means it covers the soil for longer, specifically in the post-harvest window, and it eliminates the tillage event(s) that generally accompany post-harvest rye establishment on organic farms. Clover is also much easier to work with from an equipment standpoint – it does not bind up on machinery. Unlike rye, which must be crimped in a very narrow timing window, clover can be planted into at any point during the growing season. Finally, because clover is perennial, it can fully eliminate tillage for a number of years (3-5, depending on the strength of the stand). However, existing CLMS research (including a SARE study just completed at Sawyer Farm and Four Corners Farm in collaboration with AFT and UMass), often finds a yield drag, due to clover competition, that is not always offset by labor/passes savings. Relative to CR, CLMS is in its infancy. Based on existing research and early trial results from Momentum’s farmer-partners, Momentum has begun working on Best Management Practices for CLMS, but the system remains economically risky. Continuing to trial CLMS, and trialing it head-to-head with CR, will be very valuable to organic farmers seeking to make informed tillage reduction management decisions.
Finally, our farmer-partners have identified an innovative hybrid system (Crimped Rye & Clover – CR&C) which we believe is novel. They propose frost-seeding clover into rye well before crimping. The clover will be suppressed by the rye, allowing the cash crop to have a competition-free start, which may alleviate some of the yield drag associated with many CLMS trials. After a few weeks, the clover will grow up through the rye, suppressing warm-season weeds. (Our farmers identified weeds as a major impediment to successful implementation of CR.) All three farmers have accidentally experienced clover growth through CR and are all excited to intentionally run CR&C trials.
On a small scale, this proposal would enable our farmer-partners to “steward resources to ensure sustainability, resilience, economic viability, and a high quality of life,” by compensating them for their knowledge production. On a larger scale, these results would help other farmers make informed, environmentally positive management changes without taking on undue risk.
Cooperators
Research
Snow Farm (Mike Snow) has two separate fields that he prepped for 2025 research plots.
Suburban 2:
- This field came out of sod in the spring of 2024. It's a somewhat heavy sandy loam that holds moisture.
- In September, it was seeded with rye that partially failed due to dry conditions and old seed. A mixture of peas and mustard was seeded at the same time on 36-inch centers (Mike's row crop spacing), and this took well.
- Rye was reseeded and broadcast in early October to fill in the gaps. Mike likes to drill rye and also broadcast it so the stand is dense enough for crimping. The rye is smaller than ideal going into the winter, but looks healthy and thick.
- In 2025, treatments will include a bare soil control, crimped rye (CR), and clover frost-seeded into rye, then crimped (CC&R). Each will be randomly assigned and have two reps.
Mike has not decided whether he will 'strip' or 'zip' the CR and the CC&R treatments. He has not decided whether he will plant corn, beans, or squash.
FB Fields:
- These fields have a silty loam soil, is very dry and has low fertility. It has been continuously cropped. FB was seeded with peas (no mustard) on 36" centers and rye on a similar schedule as Suburban 2. (Rye failed, replanted same date as Suburban 2). There are two issues with this field:
1) FB has notable chickweed pressure.
2) Because of droughty conditions during rye establishment and dryness/low fertility of soil, the rye is significantly behind the rye in Suburban. We consider it highly unlikely that there will be sufficient biomass for crimped rye alone.
Mike will frost-seed clover into all of FB. He will strip till on 36" early in the season when the rye doesn't have a lot of biomass. He will crimp the rye at anthesis and then plant the cash crop.
FB will have two treatments (bare soil and strip-tilled crimped clover and rye), each with two reps.
Mike has not yet decided whether he will plant corn, dry beans or squash.
Mike took baseline CASH test samples and sent them to Cornell.
Hurricane Flats (Ash Loehr) will plant winter squash in three treatments: tilled control, crimped rye, and crimped rye with oversown dutch white clover. All three treatments will be in block 8. Treatments will each be a block of three rows (5' on center and 500' long, so blocks of 15' x 500'). There will be no replicates due to the difficulty of dealing with the rye/bare soil interface between the control and crimped sections. Therefore, randomization will be limited strictly to the location/order of the three treatments. Ash feels confident that all soil variation occurs down the length of the rows rather than across the width of Block 8, so even without replicates, she feels that the data will be valid.
Block 8 grew sweet corn in 2024 and was seeded to rye on 9/18/2024 at 160 pounds/acre with a standard grain drill.
This spring, the control will be plowed down and prepped as usual for bare soil cultivation of squash. In the other two treatments, rye will be pre-crimped in early to mid May to avoid later lodging. At anthesis, rye will be crimped again. In the rye/clover block, the clover will be broadcast using a chest seeder at a rate of 30 pounds/acre directly after crimping. In both treatments, Ash will use a Shirk ripper with a fertilizer hopper to make planting furrows. Fertilizer will be applied across all three treatments based on recommendations from a standard UVM soil test. Adjustments will be made based on BMP recommendations from UVM, UMass and other ag professionals regarding crimped rye nutrition modifications. Three varieties of squash will be planted in each treatments. Squash will be in 50 cell trays, and transplanted with a water wheel transplanter following the furrows ripped with the Shirk. Irrigation will be as necessary, but we will lean in the direction of more irrigation during the critical cash crop establishment phase. All tractor passes will be recorded from the beginning to the end of the season, with qualititative notes provided about the approximate speed of passes and other notes about the efficiency of passes. Yield data will be recorded at the end of the season after harvest. Photos will be provided every two weeks. A final set of CASH tests will be taken, one from each treatment to compare with baseline CASH test taken in fall of 2024.
Hudson Valley Hops and Grains (Stuart Farr) established his cover crop plots in Field DF12S. It is approximately 480' x 400'. Half of the field was planted to Dutch White clover (8#/acre on 3/14/2024) and the other half was planted to rye/crimson clover (Crimson: 8#/acre on 10/17/2024; Rye: 150#/acre on 10/23/2024).
In spring of 2025, Stuart will plow down half of the Dutch white for a tilled control plot, leaving the other portion for a clover living mulch treatment. Half of the rye/crimson will be undersown with Dutch white clover in March, 2025, and the other half will be left for the crimped rye/crimson treatment. He will plant grain corn and oilseed sunflowers into these four treatments.
The landlord undertook unexpected construction work on half of this field, so the entire field has been cut in half. Stuart had been planning on two replicates per treatment, but this is no longer feasible given the working width of his equipment, so there will be just one plot per treatment.
In 2024, we began tracking tractor passes. So far, Ash has just one rye establishment pass across all of her treatments. Mike has four passes across all treatments, due to a failed early rye seeding (bad seed + droughty conditions). Stuart has one pass on his control and CLM treatments, and three passes on his crimped rye and crimped rye with clover treatments.
We originally intended to compare a tilled control to three treatments: Clover Living Mulch (CLM), crimped rye (CR) and crimped clover and rye (CC&R). Ash and Mike weren't able to establish clover for the CLM treatment in the same field as the other treatments, so they will just be comparing a tilled control to CR and CC&R. It is worth noting that establishing clover for CLM in the middle of the season poses its own challenges in terms of timing during the busiest time of year. Stuart's CLM seeding was successful because he interseeded into a rye cash crop in March. All three farmers will sow clover into the CC&R plots in the spring. Mike and Stuart will frost-seed; Ash will wait to seed until just before or just after crimping the rye.
The fall of 2024 was very dry and rye vigor going into the winter was variable across farms, and even across fields (drier ground at Mike's had rye with just one leaf, whereas on heavier ground the rye had multiple leaves). This is a drawback of crimped rye in general -- it's hard to know whether the rye will produce sufficient biomass when it's crimped in the following season, which makes planning very difficult. We hope that sowing clover into the rye in spring will help fill in gaps and suppress weeds compared to crimped rye alone.
Education & Outreach Activities and Participation Summary
Participation Summary:
At Momentum's 2024/5 Winter Meeting, Mike Snow and Stuart Farr presented their plans for these SARE trials. There were 20 farmers in attendance and four TAPs. There was significant interest, and a few of Momentum's farmers are considering running smaller, parallel trials in the 2025 season. This would of course be useful to augment the primary findings generated through this SARE Partnership Grant. Lincoln is working with those farmers to develop a plan.
As noted above, the Narrative Summaries of each farmer’s trial is core to meaning-making by participants, but also in crafting a story to share with other farmers.
This group of three farmers and Momentum Ag are well positioned to present our findings to the Northeast farming community; we have deep roots in our respective communities and existing audiences.
Mike Snow will either present his findings to the Connecticut River Watershed Farmers’ Alliance (CRWFA) at a winter meeting, or will host an on-farm tour in the 2025 season; he is not ready to confirm which option is likely to draw more attendees until CRWFA’s calendar becomes clearer. He anticipates an audience of at least 20 people.
Lincoln Fishman and all participating farmers will share their findings with Momentum Ag’s growers (from MA, CT, NY, VT, IA and MN) at Momentum’s annual Winter Meeting in Dec., 2025. 20 growers.
Our findings will be co-presented at the December 2024 New England Vegetable and Fruit Conference. Becky Maden helps organize the event. 50-100 attendees.
The outreach events listed above are the only deliverables we are currently prepared to absolutely commit to. However, each of our farmers are deeply engaged in the community, and we anticipate that they will participate in other events. Last year, Lincoln presented Momentum’s findings in MA, ME, VT, PA, IA and IN, and it is highly likely that the results of this study would be included in 2024/5 speaking engagements. In short, we have every reason to believe that the deliverables above are the tip of the iceberg.
The SARE final report will present the tractor passes, yield, soil health indicators and case studies in a robust, farmer-facing format, so that the information was readily available to interested farmers.