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Erosion and Lack of Crop Rotation
Rob the Bank
| The Miami Valley is under siege. Every night I turn on the evening news to see how many banks were robbed that day. When I was growing up in Brown County in the 1950's, the only banks that were robbed were those in the Westerns on television such as The Lone Ranger, Cisco Kid, and Wyatt Earp. I thought I could get away from bank robberies when I journeyed to Omaha, Nebraska last September for the Agricultural Agents National meeting. My first day there, the news reported three bank robberies in Omaha. The first bank robbed was named "Easy Money": talk about planting a seed in somebody's mind.
I believe producers today are robbing a different kind of bank. For lack of a better term, I'll call it the soil bank. Our soils are one of our most precious resources. Its ability to adapt to abuse and sustain us is remarkable. But over a period of time, it will surrender its production miracles to constant abuse. When you talk about abuse of the soil, most people equate that term with erosion. Recently, Ed Andrus gave me an article to read on the formation of the Clark Soil and Water Conservation District in 1942. His father, Howard W. Andrus, was the assistant conservationist and he stated in the article "Depletion of the soil is more serious than our axis enemies," Andrus commented at the time, seizing on the war fervor of World War II. I'll leave erosion to the "Soil and Water Boys" and focus today on the most under-estimated abuse of the soil; lack of proper crop rotations. The soil bank is robbed in a multitude of ways in a monoculture or a corn-soybean rotation. The importance of crop rotations has long been known. We use them to lessen the threat of disease, insects, nematodes, and weeds. Our forefathers did not have chemicals to battle these pests so they used crop rotations. In long rotations that include forages, "Mother Nature" was able to operate at her best. She could improve organic matter, soil structure and fight pests. Our short two year rotations cannot accomplish this; nor are they sustainable over time. Most producers today fail to adequately credit rotations for what they accomplish. There are huge volumes of research that show yield increases for corn and beans when wheat or forage is added to the rotation. Wheat, in particular, is not economically credited for the corn and soybean yield increases in our budgets. Nor is it credited for the yield robbing pests that I am now going to discuss briefly. Our corn-soybean rotations have robbed the soil bank of its ability to fight pests. The number on yield robber of soybeans is the soybean cyst nematode. This is a fast growing threat to yields. Recently, on eof our local co-ops sampled many of its producers' fields. The majority of fields were positive and a few had medium to high populations of cyst nematodes. These populations will continue to build in corn-soybean rotations, and explode in soybeans after soybean production. Root rots such as phytophthora has greatly increased in soybeans because of short or no rotations. Insects in soybeans, almost non-existent in 1975, now are a constant problem. Corn is not immune to the lack of rotations. Stalk rots have been building along with new threats from insects such as first year corn rootworm. We now worry about the crop standing till the combine can get there. Most farmers will admit that weed population is greater and more difficult to kill with the same material than they were years ago. We now have to resort to killing our weeds with our most powerful herbicide: RoundUp. Weed resistance to herbicides is real. There are over 20 confirmed counties in Ohio with ALS resistant weeds. Bank robberies occur occasionally in towns across rural America; but soil bank robberies occur constantly in fields throughout the corn belt. Granted, we need new uses for wheat and forages. Sauder furniture is now experimenting in making their pressboard furniture out of wheat straw instead of wood fibers. In the 1942 article Mr. Andrus states, "The margin of profit on which a farmer works makes it necessary for him to take advantage of every means of increasing his yields." Crop rotation is one method to accomplish this. Finally one must ask the question: Are corn-soybean rotations really sustainable? Our economic future depends on the answer. Keith L. Smith, Associate Vice President for Ag. Admin. and Director, OSU Extension TDD No. 800-589-8292 (Ohio only) or 614-292-1868 Updated: August 2001 |