No-till, Mulch-till, or Conventional-till Corn?

It may seem like a strange title, but this is the type of question that is being asked thousands of times all around our state in various counties right now. Conservation and agricultural professionals are asking specific questions, about very specific fields, which have had this type of information collected from them for over 20 years. We call it the Indiana Tillage Transect.

The Tillage Transect is a mechanism for tracking trends in conservation and cropland trends. The information collected can help us determine whether important soil quality building conservation activities, such as No-till, are being more heavily adopted or not. We can also take the collected data and estimate the average annual soil loss from Indiana’s agricultural lands. All of this information can help us to determine how to focus conservation efforts and resources in the future.

Very simply, every county has a designated route where information is visually captured from the road and recorded for later analysis. The routes generally travel throughout the main ag areas of the county. There are designated points, at regular intervals along the route where information is observed (typically this can be done from the road) and recorded. Information such as: current planted crop, previous crop, type of tillage used prior to planting-if any, and an estimated amount of residue (plant matter) remaining on the soil from the previously harvested crop (this is an indicator of soil erosion potential as bare soil can erode rapidly).

I know that this project may sound a little less than exciting, but the information is quite valuable. In fact, the Conservation Technology Information Center (CTIC) regularly requests this data to aggregate with other states’ data for tracking national cropland trends. In fact, the true value of this project may lie in the opportunity the transect presents for the key, local conservation experts to tour their county/area of responsibility together, discussing conservation planning solutions for observed environmental concerns (i.e. severe soil erosion, instances of impaired water resources) .

See our Conservation Tillage Program web page for more information and to see past Tillage Transect results!  To learn more about ways to improve soil health, improve profitability, and enhance your environmental stewardship....go to the Conservation Cropping Systems Initiative site.

What's ISDA Staff Been Up to This Month?

June has brought opportunities to ISDA staff and partners to get hands on with conservation.


On June 1, ISDA, along with our USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service and Soil and Water Conservation District partners,demonstrated conservation activities in the field. This tour was organized to help our new staff, support staff, and other important contacts view and participate in the activities that are associated with conserving our soil and water resources.  The tour group visited area farms to learn about the efforts invested by both our technical staff, the farmer, and contractors to implement conservation on the Indiana landscape and the intended conservation benefits (water quality, soil conservation, increased productivity, wildlife habitat, etc.). 





The State Soil Conservation Board met in Linton, Indiana for the June 2011 meeting. Following the meeting, board members and attendees toured Goose Pond Fish and Wildlife Area. The tour was led by Brad Feaster, DNR, Goose Pond Fish and Wildlife Area Property Manager and the USDA, Natural Resources Conservation Service. On the tour, staff and partners got a chance to observe native Indiana wildlife in their wetland habitat, as well as learn about how the property is maintained by conservation staff.




For more information on ISDA's conservation efforts, please visit our website.