Organic No-till with Living Mulches The Holy Grail for Organic Arable

ORFC Global 2021 Workshop

No-till arable farming has revolutionised the arable farming mindset and is of interest to organic farmers because of its potential to reduce cultivations whilst providing weed control, fertility and soil health. But is it possible?

Cover crops or green manures have always been part of organic arable systems but are now commonly used conventionally as part of regenerative farming systems.. The 4 pillars of regenerative farming are no-till, continuous ground cover, crop diversity and livestock integration.

In organic systems, cover crops have generally been ploughed in to provide fertility for the rotation but adopting organic no-till will require termination of the cover crop and this is difficult for organic farmers who cannot use chemicals.

One solution? A non-aggressive, low growing permanent cover crop such as small white clover, which shades out weeds and provides fertility.

In this session, we talk to two farmer-participants from our Innovative Farmer programme. They have been looking at the potential of no-till with living mulches with a group of organic and conventional farmers running on-farm trials, plus a European organic farmer who carries it out already.

Speakers:
Nicolas Lefebvre
Mark Lea
Clive Bailye

Chair:
Jerry Alford

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