New Society Publishers The Organic No-Till Farming Revolution: High-Production Methods for Small-Scale Farmers

A classic reference book for any small-scale grower looking to learn about several methods for no-till growing. This book has indeed sparked a revolution. Thanks Andrew!!

One of the best no till books ever!

Gostei

Many vegetable growers are interested in reducing tillage to promote soil health and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This book has some useful ideas, but it would be more accurate to call it a book about tillage reduction rather than no-till, because most of the farms profiled are still doing some tillage. Also, one of the principal practices promoted in the book, using deep compost applications which are left on the soil surface as a mulch, could be problematic because of the potential for nutrient overloading as well as carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide emissions.

Disclaimer: I am not a market farmer – only a vegetable gardener. That said, I raise 3,000 sq. ft. of vegetables that I have no-tilled from virgin sod. I have experimented with and still use cover crops, deep mulch, cardboard, occultation, and solarization. Now on to the review…Conversational Style: The Organic No-Till Farming Revolution is not a how-to book or manual with neatly organized steps. Rather Mefferd uses conversational style to tell the stories of about eighteen farmers and their no-till farms. For a farming novice who has never heard of no-till before, this book will serve to pique the curiosity and present a case for no-till farming but will fall short of being a comprehensive handbook. For someone who is somewhat familiar with the subject, Mefford's book may well provide the incentive to start small while answering questions on the viability and profitability of no-till.Contents: The Organic No-Till Farming Revolution begins by listing the benefits of the no-till method and an overall explanation of various techniques. Mefford organizes the remainder of his book by no-till methodology dedicating a separate chapter to each farm interview. Sections include mulch grown in place, cardboard mulch, deep straw mulch, and compost mulch. Mefford also highlights the differences between the use of plastic for occultation and solarization.Andrew Mefford is obviously an advocate of no-till farming, but he does not gloss over the method's weaknesses – namely problems with perennial weeds, slugs, and voles. Throughout the book, the benefits of no-till are overwhelmingly portrayed as outweighing the negatives. These benefits include low entry cost, increased soil biology, better soil structure, increased organic matter, water conservation, weed reduction, and reduced labor requirements.Opinion: I pre-ordered this book months before it was released, and I am not sorry I did. The content is useful to me as a hard-core gardener and should also be of inspiration to a small-scale market farmer. If the book has a downside, it is that the information is so interspersed throughout interviews rather than being organized succinctly in handbook style. This makes locating information for future reference slightly more challenging. On the flip side, the casual conversational style makes for easy reading and brings to the book the authenticity of real-life, economically viable farms as working models.Oh, and one more random note, the cover takes fingerprints like mad, but hey, your copy will probably be soil-stained and teeming with microbiology soon anyhow.