No-till farming seems to be better for keeping the soil damp49 and reducing erosion50 and compaction.51 But, for complicated reasons, it’s no better at storing carbon in the soil,52 or preventing fertilizers53, 54 and pesticides55 escaping from the fields. Broadly speaking, it works well when people farm as Tim does: rotating their crops, keeping the soil covered with catch crops in the winter, and leaving straw and dead weeds (the soil armour) on the surface.56, 57 But it works badly when farmers, as Paul puts it, ‘spray and pray’: dose the land with weedkiller, drill the seed, but otherwise
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