Reply #22: Actually, corn stover is left on top of the field to rot during the fall

[amandabeech]

and winter. It helps control erosion both from wind and rain. A few farmers will disc it in a bit and sow a cover crop like rye or perhaps some clover into the stover.

The stover contains NPK and it also decomposes into hummus which improves soil texture, creates the right environment for helpful soil organisms and improves soil moisture retention.

No so many farmers use manure anymore. The concentrated feeding operations wash the animal waste into a tank underneath the enclosure resulting in a soupy mess. It can be knifed or squirted into the soil using specialized equipment and a tanker, but it can't really be spread on a field--it would be too easy for the manure to flow into nearby streams should a rainstorm come up.

Fallow generally is no longer used, but sometimes you will still see hay fields. Crop rotations still exist for some crops, like soybeans and corn, but most farmers don't use 4-5 year rotations. As a result, some pests are becoming resistant to current pesticides. Very few animals are pastured anymore, including dairy cattle. They just stay in the barn and eat corn and soybeans.

Artificial fertilizers cover nearly all the plant's needs these days. Fertilizer not only means nitrogen (which is currently made almost exclusively using natural gas, not oil) which can be grabbed from the air anytime, but also non-renewable elements like phosphorus and potassium. The U.S. has a 70 year supply of phosphorus. After that, we'll have to import, if we can, from Morocco or the Middle East. Our potassium mostly comes from Canada.

I strongly favor using animal wastes, processed human wastes and all the composted organic matter that we can on our fields to cut down on the use of artificial fertilizers and to increase the organic matter in our soils, so that we can continue to feed ourselves through Peak Oil and Global Warming.