.:: Lao Knowledge Base on Conservation Agriculture ::.
5- Terminology
Conservation agriculture (CA) Featured
This term, which has been promoted by FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) since 2001, refers to cropping systems that comply with the three following basic principles: direct seeding, permanent cover (crop residue or cover plants) and crop rotation. This term is now becoming widely accepted, but its definition is not as specific as it was at the outset, when it closely mirrored DMC.
Biological or organic agriculture Featured
This refers to agriculture without reliance on commercial synthetic chemical inputs (fertilizers, pesticides, etc.). Ploughing and repeated tillage is acceptable (usually not implemented), but DMC can be practiced.
Agrobiology Featured
This term was used by CIRAD in the 1990s in reference to DMC. It is no longer used to avoid confusion with biological agriculture.
Agroecology Featured
Agroecology is a science that concerns all soil protection and fertility enhancement techniques, while also being productive without substantial chemical input application. This strategy improves the natural functions of ecosystems and thus intensifies biological activity in the soil, to the benefit of farmers and sustainable agricultural production. This term encompasses DMC, biological agriculture, etc.
Direct seeding Featured
Direct seeding is a cropping system in which the seed is sown directly in untilled soil. Only a small seed hole or furrow is opened. There can be plant cover (permanent or temporary, dead or live) or the ground may be left bare, but generally there is a layer of crop residue.
Direct seeding mulch-based cropping systems (DMC) Featured
This concept was launched by CIRAD in 1999 in reference to cropping systems that include no tillage and permanent plant cover on the soil. The expression ‘plant cover’ refers to dead mulch (crop residue, cover plants or dead weeds) or live mulch associated with the crop.
Simplified cropping techniques (SCT) Featured
This expression is used by the French farming community in reference to agriculture without tillage (or no-tillage techniques, NTT), but with scraping of the soil surface (shallow ploughing or scarification) to bury part of the crop residue, so the ground is generally left bare.
Conventional tillage Featured
In USA, this term refers to all systems (with or without tillage) in which there are no more than 15% mulch cover (crop residue) after sowing. In France, these are traditional techniques with tillage.
Conservation tillage (CT) Featured
This American term refers to systems in which at least 30% of the field is covered by crop residue when the crop is sown. In USA, this includes four tillage methods, with the first two being by far the most important: • No-tillage (direct seeding): without tillage. • Mulch tillage: whereby tillage is carried out with chisel ploughs and discs (typically American, not available in Europe), with less than 15% of the crop residue buried after a single pass, i.e. most of the residue is left on the surface. The crop is sown under the mulch layer with a special seeder. There is no equivalent in France. • Ridge tillage: permanent ridges are tilled, followed by direct seeding. Strip tillage (or strip-till or zone-till): only single, relatively narrow strips are tilled, often with a rotary hoe, to facilitate soil warming in the spring (used especially in the Corn Belt).
No-tillage, no-till, zero-tillage, direct seeding, dire... Featured
All of these terms refer to systems without soil tillage, i.e. direct seeding, without specifying the soil cover conditions. In USA, at least 30% of the field is covered with crop residue (see below).
Reduced tillage Featured
This American term refers to situations in which 15-30% of the ground is covered (crop residue) at the time of sowing. It is quite close to the current French SCT (TCS in French) concept and the former minimum tillage concept.
Minimum tillage Featured
This term should be avoided because it is too vague. It has several meanings in USA, Canada and Australia, e.g. reduction in the number of equipment passes (during the 1960s), or exclusively surface scraping with or without crop residue (1970s). "
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