A Uruguayan zero till farmer is speaking to GrainWorld about how zero tillage has taken over that nation’s commercial farming, at the same time as total acreage there has quickly expanded.
Miguel Carballal said Uruguayan farmers have gone from farming less than one million acres in 2001 to 3.2 million acres today.
Asian demand for soybeans has caused production there to explode, but intensive farming has brought environmental degradation. That’s why farmers like him have quickly adopted zero tillage, and zero tillage has taken over most commercial farming in the country.
Before zero till, massive soil loss followed any crop production. For every tonne of grain produced, about 20 tonnes of soil would be lost from the field.
Farmers in the 1970s did crop tillage and pasture rotations. Pasture-pasture-wheat-sunflower-wheat-pasture was typical.
Then double-cropping was adopted with shank-based minimum tillage.
From 1990s until now zero tillage has been adopted.
