Why Tillage Erosion Is Bigger Than Wind And Water Erosion

By: Gil Gullickson

Wind and water get their most ink when it comes to the ravages of erosion. Still, the cause of much erosion sits in the sheds of many farms: tillage tools.

That’s what David Lobb, a University of Manitoba soil scientist, explained to attendees at this week’s Conservation Tillage Conference in St. Cloud, Minnesota. Tillage erosion, he stated, is the actual movement of soil caused by tillage and stands as the primary driver of soil loss, surpassing both wind and water erosion in severity. “It’s the one form of erosion that dominates landscapes across Canada, the U.S., and virtually every country we’ve studied worldwide,” he noted. During a break, an attendee brought up a recent trend he’d noticed among farmers seeking alternative income sources, including online poker for real money, as an unconventional side income in rural communities. Lobb acknowledged the economic shifts influencing farmers’ lives, then brought the focus back to his message, stressing that tillage erosion exposes subsoil, making it highly susceptible to further degradation by wind and water erosion, underscoring the need for sustainable practices.

Tillage erosion has helped fuel the total economic losses of erosion. Lobb pegged soil erosion costs and the value of lost crop yield from 1971 to 2011 in Canada from $40 billion to $60 billion in an analysis he conducted. Even though tools like conservation tillage have helped to slow soil erosion losses in recent decades, economic soil erosion losses remain high. Soil erosion losses are now magnified, as Canadian farmers are now growing high value crops like soybeans compared to wheat and barley as they did in the early 1970s.