Economics of Reduced-Till, No-Till and Opportunity Cropping in Western Kansas

The benefits of no-till farming and the decrease in the cost of glyphosate herbicide have increased no-till popularity. Glyphosate herbicide is popular because of its ability to kill a large spectrum of weeds and its relative safety. The glyphosate warning labels carry the lowest level assigned by the Environmental Protection Agency. No-till tends to increase yields with time and provides higher yields when moisture is limited (Schlegel, Dumler and Thompson). No-till protects the soil from wind and water erosion. This study compares the economics of reduced-till (RT) to no-till (NT) in western Kansas using elevated crop residue levels and higher intensity opportunity cropping strategies to overcome obstacles. Before presenting procedures and data, several issues related to farming in western Kansas that affected the choice of cropping systems, analytical procedures and results are discussed. Three obstacles limit adoption of NT in western Kansas. First, some native perennial grasses are resistant to herbicides. Second, dryness in September can result in a soil crust forming that seeding equipment will not penetrate for fall planting and/or drying of the soil below the seeding depth of no-till drills. Third, current NT seeding technology runs over residue, breaking it off at ground level. This crop residue decomposes quickly and is removed by rain and wind, exposing soils to erosion. Currently, eco-fallow with reduced-till is a popular farming method. Eco-fallow is a crop rotation that lasts for three years. The first year the land is summer fallowed and wheat is planted in the fall. Wheat is harvested in mid-summer of the second year. A summer crop, such as corn, grain sorghum or sunflower is planted in May or June and harvested in the fall of the third year