About a quarter of the agricultural crop land in Manitoba is under zero tillage.
That from Marla Rieckman, soil management specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, who notes much of that is in the west side of the province.
She says there's some interesting research currently being done at the University of Manitoba.
"They're looking at tilling strips in the soil and then leaving the stubble standing between the strips, so you get that benefit of the no till, but still having a little bit of that tillage happening to blacken up the soil, warm it up and still be able to grow a crop in. So it's not quite no till but it's a bit of an advancement towards a kind of a minimum till system in an area in the [Red River] Valley where people have found it's farm too challenging to do things like no till just because of the heavy, clay soils."
Source : Portageonline