This month the Senate is set to take up the climate and energy bill that Congress began work on last spring. One provision will likely set up a system to pay farmers for something called "no-till farming."
This month the Senate is set to take up the climate and energy bill that Congress began work on last spring. One provision will likely set up a system to pay farmers for something called "no-till farming."
The concept: When crops are planted without tilling, the soil holds more carbon, which means less goes up into the atmosphere.
But scientists aren't sure no-till really sequesters carbon any better than conventional farming.
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Soil scientist Michel Cavigelli of the U.S. Department of Agriculture agrees that no-till fields, like the one he studies in rural Maryland, can hold more carbon than plowed fields.
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But that is only at the surface. Researchers have discovered that when you dig down three feet or so, plowed fields hold just as much — if not more — carbon than no-till.
