Dwayne Beck Insights
Dr. Dwayne Beck, retired researcher, shared insights on arid farming at the Louisville National No-till meeting last week. Dwayne Beck managed the Dakotas Lake Research Farm in Pierre, SD for many years. Here are some insights. Dr Beck says that doing things in an environmentally good way is almost always the most profitable! Mother Nature designed it so that nutrients and diversity are always preserved. Weeds and diseases are Mother Nature’s way of adding diversity. Nature always wants something growing, so weeds proliferate on bare soils. When there is not enough diversity, diseases cause the main crop to fail so that other plants can grow. It’s a natural balance. High disturbance causes weeds to grow. Soils are full of weed seed, so disturbance brings those weed seeds to the surface to grow. In South Dakota, no-till decreases weed species by almost 60% (225 species on conventional tilled to 94 on no-till). When a 4-way crop rotation was used, the reduction was 85% (44 spe...