Permanent Bed System for Small-scale Organic Reduced-till Agriculture

For a diversified farm, permanent beds are a useful strategy for laying out the farm that aids in production planning where field traffic is restricted to the between-bed area, year after year. With compaction concentrated outside the planting area, growers can reevaluate the intensity, depth, area, and frequency of tillage necessary. We established a four year reduced tillage, permanent bed experiment in in the fall of 2014 at two locations: the Cornell Homer C. Thompson Research Farm, Freeville, NY and the Highmoor Farm University of Maine Agricultural Experiment Station, Monmouth, ME. We applied 4 tillage intensities (from low-no till to high-conventional rototilling) to newly established permanent beds. The tillage main plots were arranged in strip-plot design and further sub-divided into three sub-plot mulching treatments: fall seeded oat/pea cover crop (no mulch), straw mulch, compost mulch. Tillage-mulch plots consist of three four ft wide beds, each 25 ft long, and with four replications. Here we report on three tillage systems (1. no tillage, 2. tarped no tillage, 3. standard rototilling) In the no-till tarp system, tarps were applied to the soil surface at least six weeks ahead of planting (14 May in Maine and 15 April in New York, 2015) and removed the week of planting ( 6 July in Maine in June 5 in New York. The 2015 growing season was the first cropping year of the experiment. ‘Farao’ cabbage was transplanted into beds with three rows per bed planted 15in on center and 12in within-row spacing. The tarped no-till plots produced significantly greater yields compared to other tillage treatments at both locations. Soil temperatures were greater in tarped plots compared to un-tarped plots prior to tarp removal. Additionally, soil temperatures were greatest in un-mulched plots followed by compost and straw mulched plots. Tarped plots had fewer weeds and required less time weeding than the other tillage treatments. Soil moisture was greatest in straw mulched plots followed by compost and un-mulched plots. No-mulch plots had greater yields compared to mulched plots at both locations. In Maine, straw mulched plots out yielded compost mulched plots though the difference was not significant. In New York compost and no mulch had significantly higher yields than the straw treatment. Over four years, this work will provide growers with more agronomic, ecological and economic information to evaluate reduced tillage practices for permanent beds.

Key words: compost, reduced tillage, mulch, fertility, permanent beds, soils