"To Till or Not to Till," That is the Question

For four years, a group of experienced California organic vegetable farmers has been trying to develop, test and improve reduced soil disturbance production techniques at their farms in Meridian, Hollister, and Guinda. They have implemented various approaches including rolling cover crops, strip-tillage, and vertical tillage in an attempt to minimize overall soil disturbance for a wide variety of crops and monitored the performance of these practices. On balance, the reduced disturbance systems have had less production than the farm's traditional tillage approach, but several insights into what may be limiting productivity have been uncovered and will be discussed in this workshop along with promising adjustments and opportunities for further improvement of these challenging production techniques.