For years, a few farmers have questioned whether doing a single year of tillage with continuous no-till is a good idea. Based on many years of successful experience by no-tillers, that’s turned into a “no-no” for lots of growers.

Yet in some semi-arid environments such as western Kansas, doing continuous no-till has become increasingly challenging due to a lack of herbicide options for difficult-to-control and herbicide-resistance weeds. Another concern is with pH issues due to increasing soil acidification near the surface.

Impacts of Strategic Tillage

As a result, researchers at the Kansas State University Western Kansas Research Center at Hays, Kan., studied the use of strategic tillage in long-term no-till fields to better manage weeds and its impact on crop yields and soil properties over the past 8 years.

They investigated the use of a one-time strategic tillage implement in 2016 on soil properties and yields from 2017 to 2023 in long-term no-till plots originally established 50 years ago. They compared no-till, one-time strategic tillage (with a shallow-depth sweep plow) and reduced tillage treatments across continuous winter wheat, wheat-fallow and wheat-sorghum-fallow rotations. 

In western Kansas, the most commonly used implement for strategic tillage is the sweep plow, a non-inversion conservation tillage implement run only 1-2 inches to control most shallow-rooted perennial grass weeds while not burying crop residue. Going any deeper will only spread weed seeds.

But the major problem for no-tillers would be going back to a year of no income from the fallowed ground.

Soil Properties, Yields

Doing 1-year of strategic tillage with long-term no-till had no negative effect on soil properties or yields. Soil organic carbon concentrations under strategic tillage were the same as no-till, while soils under reduced tillage led to 8% less soil organic carbon. 

The use of strategic tillage increased yields compared to no-till in continuous winter wheat rotations mostly due to improved weed control. However, wheat yields were similar across tillage treatments with wheat-fallow and wheat-sorghum-fallow rotations. Sorghum yields were the same with the strategic tillage and no-till treatments, both being 12% greater than under reduced tillage.

Moving back to a year of fallow doesn’t make sense for no-tillers who are using the practice to put crop dollars in the bank every year. In fact, getting away from those unnecessary fallow years is why many growers farming in drier areas went to no-till in the first place.