Soil

Conservation tillage with agronomic crops (i.e., cotton, corn, soybeans, etc.) has been successful in Georgia production. Such production practices have several benefits, the most notable being the elimination of soil erosion. Other benefits include but aren’t limited to increases in soil organic matter, maintaining a healthy rhizosphere (root-zone soil), reduction of riparian and waterway pollution, and water conservation.

Some examples of conservation tillage practices include no till, ridge till, and strip till. No–till production involves no tillage of field soils and leaves all of the previous crop residue on the soil surface. Ridge–till production involves building a ridge during cultivation, then scalping the ridge and sowing seed. The scalping process moves most of the previous–crop residue to the row middles, leaving a clean row for sowing. Strip–till production is when a narrow strip is tilled for each row that will be planted, leaving the row middles intact with the previous–crop residue. Strip–tillage may reduce yields if weeds in the untilled area are not killed, as these weeds will compete with the crop for water and nutrients. Although the planted row is free of previous crop residue, it may be advantageous to kill the cover crop to prevent it from competing for nutrients and water with the vegetable crop.