How Can Conservation Tillage Reduce Soil Erosion?
Soil conservation involves reducing soil erosion and restoring soil fertility. For hundreds of years, farmers have used various methods to reduce soil erosion, mostly by keeping the soil covered with vegetation. In conventional-tillage farming, farmers plow the land and then break up and smooth the soil to make a planting surface. In areas such as the midwestern United States, harsh winters prevent plowing just before the spring growing season. Thus crop fields often are plowed in the fall. This leaves the soil bare during the winter and early spring and makes it vulnerable to erosion. To reduce erosion, many US. farmers are using conservation-tillage farming (either minimum-tillage or no-till farming). The idea is to disturb the soil as little as possible while planting crops. With minimum-tillage farming, special tillers break up and loosen the subsurface soil without turning over the topsoil, previous crop residues, and any cover vegetation. In no-till farming, special planting mach
