Erosion seems to be in the news constantly. It’s eating our shorelines, crumbling mountains, and wearing away farmers’ fields.
Farmers have been fighting soil erosion since they figured out what it was.
David Dunn’s family had a farm, here in the London area, which he worked before moving on to Cuddy Farms later in life. He says one of the tried and true methods they used to combat erosion was to plant hedgerows along the fields.
“[Hedgerows] stop the wind, if it’s a sand field, from blowing the sand across the field. And stop water too, if there’s a big storm, it’d be runoff down the hedgerow. It helped out that way.”
Planting hedges along the borders of fields for protection and separation fell out of style, as farmers wanted extra acreage, but Dunn says he’s starting to see the practice come back.
Soil health expert Joel Williams.
Photo courtesy of Integrated Soils
Soil health expert, Joel Williams, agrees that water and wind are the primary drivers of soil erosion, but they’re not the only causes.
“From a farmer’s perspective… the number one culprit, really, is leaving the soil bare, leaving the soil exposed to the elements.”
The best way to counter that is to keep the soil covered between seasons.
“Coverage can come in 2 forms. It can be either keeping the soil covered with things like crop residue – remaining stalks and roots… that’s one way to physically hold the soil in place and protect it. But a much more effective way is to keep the soil covered with living plants.”
Chisel Plow
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Another way to slow down soil erosion is to minimize how much a farmer disturbs the soil.
Plowing fields after the harvest in the fall has become a major debate for farmers in Ontario. Some say, plowing in the fall is ideal as a way to get a step ahead for planting in the spring. Others say, by plowing in the fall the soil is exposed and when the snow melts in the spring it washes away the topsoil.
Williams says trying to transition towards not tilling or plowing at all is the absolute best way to go. He says every time a farmer plows their fields, they expose the soil to the elements and lose important factors to soil health, like worms.
“If we can just prevent that soil from being exposed, the erosion potential declines significantly.”
Soil erosion is a natural process. There’s no way to stop it completely, but Williams says we can slow it down.
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