III. No-Till Farming Systems - nifty

ANNEX I
New Book
No-Tillage Seeding in Conservation Agriculture
Authors: Baker, Saxton, Ritchie, Chamen, Reicosky,
Ribeiro, Justice and Hobbs
Editors: C.J. Baker and K.E. Saxton (baker@crossslot.com)
A Summary
This 326-page book is an expanded second edition of No-Tillage Seeding: Science
and Practice (Baker, Saxton and Ritchie), first published in 1996. The second
edition was commissioned by FAO (United Nations) and published jointly in
2006 by FAO and CABI, England.
FAO explained why it commissioned the book in
a Foreword penned jointly by Shivaji Pandey and
Theodor Friedrich. The preface is contributed by
the editors and outlines why the book was written
and how the reported science has already dictated
the design of Cross Slot ® no-tillage technologies.
The book’s 19 chapters draw on research conducted
at New Zealand’s Massey University and
U.S.A.’s Washington State University that
helped identify and eliminate many of the causes
of previous biological failures in no-till systems.
Other research is reported from the U.S. Department
of Agriculture; 4Ceasons Agriculture and
Environment, U.K.; Instituto Agronômico do
Paraná, Brazil; National Agriculture and Environment
Forum, Nepal; and Cornell University,
USA.
The book sets the scene by outlining the fundamental principles of no-tillage. The
first chapter reports the benefits of no-tillage, many of which are due to maintaining
or increasing soil carbon levels. These benefits are given some perspective in
a chapter on risks (biological, physical, chemical and economic) associated with
no-tillage systems. The authors argue that the risks of crop failure (or even partial
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