Trailblazers of the no-till movement

SIMPLE things like retaining stubble or even putting out nitrogen fertiliser on wheat crops are taken for granted in todays farming systems.

But there was a time, not that long ago in relative terms, when the no-till and minimum till practices used by close to 90 per cent of Australian croppers in some fashion was a revolutionary, risky idea.

One of the first proponents of no-till practices in the country was agronomist Peter Ridge, who worked in the Wimmera region as one of the first private agronomists in the mid 1980s.

Following a stint with the Victorian Department of Agriculture, Mr Ridge said one of his major focuses when he went out on his own was to work to improve water use efficiency.

We used to use neutron probes to monitor soil moisture reserves and it was pretty clear there were better results in systems incorporating stubble retention, Mr Ridge, who now lives in Corowa, NSW, said.

This field research backed up work we had done at the Department that pointed that stubble retention also retained moisture.

It was worth an extra 50-60 millimetres a year compared to traditional cultivated paddocks.

Mr Ridge said the initial work in Australia followed research out of North America showing good promise with no-till systems.

There was also a lot of work being done in Queensland, where researchers were primarily looking at managing high volumes of water during big rainfall events by having standing crop residue.

But while researchers were optimistic of its benefits, there had only been very sporadic uptake by Australia farmers.

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Trailblazers of the no-till movement