DATE: 8/1/2005

CONTACT: Dr. Jim Frederick, (843) 662-3526

WRITER: Tom Lollis, (803) 284-3343, ext. 241

CTIC officer says nation needs to renew conservation passion

FLORENCE – Soil. You can’t treat it like dirt and expect it to hang around.

That was the message from John Hassell, executive director of the Conservation Technology Information Center in West Lafayette, Ind., during the recent Southern Conservation Tillage Systems Conference hosted by Clemson University and the USDA-Agricultural Research Service at the Pee Dee Research and Education Center.

“We have 103 million acres of land in the United States eroding excessively, losing 1.9 billion tons of soil annually,” he said. On top of that he pointed out that acreage devoted to growing crops is declining while population keeps increasing, putting an ever increasing strain on each acre of soil to keep ahead of the demand for food.

“In 1982, 420.4 million acres of cropland were planted. Last year 276.8 million acres were planted,” he said. “We’ve produced bumper crops of grain for years. Worldwide we used to have 70 days of stocks in reserve. Today we’re down to 59.”

Hassell said that improving soil health through conservation tillage and no-till management systems that increase organic matter is critical. Organic matter improves infiltration and helps improve air, water and other environmental quality issues.

However, only 22.6 percent of cropland acreage is in a no-till system and less than 10 percent of those acres are continuously no-tilled.

He said that a farmer’s fields should mimic the rainforest, which is always covered. Crop residue and cover crops provide food for the organisms that live below ground and help make nutrients available to plants. That improves productivity.

Anything else invites disaster, such as the Dust Bowl of the 1930s in the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles, caused by a combination of clean tillage and drought.

“It was estimated that 850 million tons of soil blew off the plains in just one year, 1935,” said Hassell. Dust clouds were seen as far away as Washington, D.C., where Congress that year established the Soil Conservation Service.

Water supplies are being stretched thin by growing demand from agriculture, industry and municipalities, and Hassell expects water to become a major national crisis within the next decade.

Nearly 150 participants from 11 states attended the two-day conference, hearing oral presentations and seeing Clemson University and USDA-ARS field work dedicated to conservation practices.

Jim Frederick, Clemson Extension agronomist, said that an evenly-divided 14-acre field planted in 1999 for a long-term study comparing conventional tillage to conservation tillage has shown higher yields and less erosion on the conservation side.

“In 2000 we had cotton yields of 682 lbs. of lint on the conservation side, versus 530 lbs. on the conventional,” he said. Plots of an eighth of an acre were enclosed in each 7-acre section so researchers could measure the loss of water and sediment under each system.

“On the conventional side we had 2.4 inches of water run off the field for the year. On the conservation aide we lost a tenth of an inch. We lost 12 pounds of soil on the conservation side versus more than half a ton,” said Frederick.

Jeff Novak, USDA-ARS researcher, said that conservation practices increased soil carbon content, or organic matter, by 20 percent within four years. He is looking at ways to increase organic matter and ways to get it deeper into the soil with conservation tillage systems.

During a Pee Dee REC tour attendees also got a look at efforts to integrate wildlife habitat enhancement with agriculture -- a demonstration of practices such as field borders, prescribed burning, hedgerows, filter strips, native warm season grass plantings and riparian forest buffers.

T.J. Savereno, Clemson wildlife biologist, pointed out that most of the wildlife habitat in South Carolina is on private land. He said that practices which provide food and cover for wildlife offer extra income potential for the landowner.

“A study in Jasper and McCormick counties nearly 13 years ago found that hunting contributed about $8 million and $6 million annual to the economies of those counties, respectively,” he said. “Other activities like bird watching, hiking and photography have potential also.”

“We want to establish the Pee Dee REC as a model for integrated farm and natural resource management, and eventually develop a best management practices manual for this kind of management in an agricultural setting,” Savereno said.

The conference was sponsored by the S.C. Farm Bureau, Farm Credit, Pioneer Seed, the USDA-National Resource Conservation Service, the S.C. Cotton Board, the S.C. Tobacco Board, the S.C. Soybean Board and Monsanto.

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