Everybody told them to farm along the contours of their sloping land to prevent soil erosion.
But they did the opposite: farming straight up the slopes of wet Queens-land. And it worked.
“We had some crazy guys decide that was a smart idea 20 years ago,” Australian farming adviser Tim Neale said during the World Congress on Conservation Agriculture while talking about pineapple farmers who went with their intuition when it came to soil protection.
They decided to try farming straight up and down slopes instead of across them because of problems they saw with farming the contours.
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“That’s the key,” said Neale, who advises farmers in Australia as well as Alberta.
“All the science said, ‘no, that’s not going to work.’ We went back to the farm and that’s where it started.”
Multiple examples of farmer-originated conservation practices were highlighted and discussed during the congress, held June 22-25 in Winnipeg.
Neale’s example of counter-contour farming was just an aside in a presentation about using manure to build up soil, but it drew much interest from the farmers, scientists and advisers in the room.
In an interview, Neale admitted the idea seemed crazy to him 20 years ago, but the pineapple farmers were making it work in rainy conditions.
Farming along contours has often been held out as a way to stop rainwater rushing down slopes and creating erosion channels, but Neale said it can often have the opposite effect.
The low points of contour rows can allow water to pool and break through when it gets heavy enough, which causes other pooled water to cascade and creates a gouge on the slope. The end result is erosion.
“The worst thing that can happen is when all those furrows jump out and start to congress and confluence,” said Neale.
“You get water depth, then you get velocity. If you can keep your water spread, then you won’t get velocity.”
Farming down the slope separates the rainwater into thousands of tiny streams, most of which can soak into the soil without pooling.
Eliminating heavy pooling is key to preventing water from creating mini-torrents, especially on banks and terraces along slopes.
“It’ll put a lot less pressure on each of those terraces,” said Neale.
“A big rill hitting a terrace is going to be pretty hard, but lots of little bits of water hitting a terrace all at once is a lot less damaging.”
Neale said cereal farmers in Australia mimicked the pineapple farmers’ practices and found they also worked in wheat.
He said these kinds of experiences don’t apply everywhere because local conditions vary. For example, Alberta needs to deal with deep wheel tracks and large amounts of snow melt, both of which can pose problems.
“Don’t get me wrong, it’s not perfect,” said Neale.
