Abstract
Reducing tillage intensity offers the possibility of moving towards sustainable intensification objectives. Reduced tillage (RT) practices, where the plough is not used, can provide a number of environmental and financial benefits, particularly for soil erosion control. Based on 2010 harvest year data from the nationally stratified Farm Business Survey and drawing on a sub‐sample of 249 English arable farmers, we estimate that approximately 32% of arable land was established under RT, with 46% of farms using some form of RT. Farms more likely to use some form of RT were larger, located in the East Midlands and South East of England and classified as ‘Cereals’ farms. Application of RT techniques was not determined by the age or education level of the farmer. Individual crops impacted the choice of land preparation, with wheat and oilseed rape being more frequently planted after RT than field beans and root crops, which were almost always planted after ploughing. This result suggests there can be limitations to the applicability of RT. Average tillage depth was only slightly shallower for RT practices than ploughing, suggesting that the predominant RT practices are quite demanding in their energy use. Policy makers seeking to increase sustainable RT uptake will need to address farm‐level capital investment constraints and target policies on farms growing crops, such as wheat and oilseed rape, that are better suited to RT practices.
Highlights
Lowering tillage intensity is a management practice that potentially can reduce environmental impacts and improve agricultural outputs
Drawing on the combined data sources of the Farm Business Survey (FBS) and the survey for each farm we investigated the current use of reduced tillage (RT) in England, the depth of tillage practices, where RT is used within the crop rotation and how tillage practices relate to key input and output data for individual crops
Cereal farms were more likely to use at least some RT (P < 0.001; data for the following analyses are presented in Table 2); where RT is used, farm types do not differ in the percentage area of RT (P = 0.548)
Summary
Lowering tillage intensity is a management practice that potentially can reduce environmental impacts and improve agricultural outputs (i.e. providing ‘sustainable intensification’; Buckwell et al, 2014). A number of tillage systems forego the use of the plough (i.e. do not involve soil inversion). These systems vary in the extent to which soil is disturbed, ranging from extensive, in deep reduced tillage (RT1), to limited, in shallow RT and minor, in zero-tillage (ZT) with the latter establishing the crop with only very minimum soil disturbance (Davies & Finney, 2002). These tillage systems are often part of wider agronomic practices. E-mail: toby.townsend@nottingham. ac.uk Received April 2015; accepted after revision October 2015 1Abbreviations: always plough (AP); Farm Business Survey (FBS); gross margin (GM); never plough (NP); reduced tillage (RT); root crops (RC); sometimes plough (SP); spring barley (SB); survey on agricultural production methods (SAPM); winter barley (WB); winter field beans (WFB); winter oilseed rape (WOSR); winter wheat (WW); zero-tillage (ZT)
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