Technology Keys
General Benefits
1) Minimal Runoff Conventional Farming: Typically, 90% of rainfall lost in runoff. Farming God's Way: Typically only 6% of rainfall is lost in runoff.
2) Minimal Erosion Conventional Farming: Typically 55 - 250 tons of soil lost per hectare per annum in Africa. Farming God's Way: Minimal soil lost per hectare per annum.
3) Improved Infiltration Conventional Farming: Kinetic energy from the hammer action of raindrops causes crusting resulting in only 10% of rainfall penetrating the soil. Farming God's Way: God’s Blanket protects the soil from the hammer action of the raindrop by absorbing the impact like a shock absorber, allowing 94% penetration.
4) Decrease in Evaporative Loss Conventional Farming: The 10% of moisture that infiltrates ploughed soil gets exposed to very high surface temperatures, causing significant moisture losses through evaporation. Farming God's Way: God’s Blanket shades the soil surface, keeping it moist and cool, hereby significantly reducing evaporation from the soil.
5) Cooler Soil Temperature Better for Seedling Growth Seedlings in Farming God's Way fields take longer to emerge, but about 3 weeks after emergence, these seedlings will flourish and overtake the seedlings in conventionally farmed fields. The cooler soil temperatures are ideal for root establishment, hereby producing stronger and healthier plants.
6) First Rain not Wasted Conventional Farming: Wait for 1st rains before ploughing. Wait for 2nd good rain before planting. Farming God's Way: Fields prepared before the 1st rains. Can plant immediately when the 1st good rains arrive as minimal evaporative loss.
7) Improved Weed Control Conventional Farming: Ploughing stimulates weed germination. Farming God's Way: No ploughing and 100% surface cover helps to significantly reduce weed growth. Smother mulching has proven to be one of the most effective ways to combat creeping grasses and weeds.
Soil Improvement Benefits
8) Improved Water Holding Capacity Soil with an unploughed sponge-like structure is far better at holding moisture, which in turn will result in better drought tolerance and yields.
9) Improved Fertility God’s Blanket gradually decomposes over the years, through insect and other microbial activity. This is an important part of releasing nutrients back into the soil again, hereby improving fertility.
10) Nitrogen Fixing Through Rotations with Legumes Soil fertility is improved by rotating grain crops with legumes such as beans, soyabeans, groundnuts and other crops which fix nitrogen. This nitrogen will be available for the following season’s crop.
11) Reduced Compaction Conventional Farming: Ploughed exposed soil is susceptible to slumping, which is the collapse of the whole profile over time, as the structure and air spaces get pulverized making the soil much more compacted. Ploughing also causes plough pans, which are hard soil compaction layers which form at 20-30 cm deep.
Farming God's Way: The soil increases its volume over the years, with many old root channels and insect burrows, which allow for next year’s crop roots to move quickly down through the profile, unrestricted.
12) Improved Aeration The sponge effect in soil from not ploughing, through insect burrows and decomposing root channels, plays an important role in keeping air in the soil profile, which will allow roots to breathe even in waterlogged conditions.
13) Soil Microbiology Improvement There are 2 basic types of soil microbes, namely aerobic and anaerobic, that exist in the soil. Conventional Farming: Ploughing buries the aerobic organisms in the anaerobic environment and lifts the anaerobic organisms into the aerobic environment causing them all to die.
Farming God's Way: By not burning the blanket or ploughing the soil, we create an ideal environment, cool and moist, for an abundance of organic life to exist. A healthy soil is a living soil.
Economic Benefits
14) Pest and Disease Control Plants under moisture or nutrient stress give off wavelengths of light like an attractant, which encourage infestations of pests and diseases. Farming God's Way allows for healthy plants that are not under stress. It also allows for a healthy balanced soil ecosystem, which is the safest environment to prevent an infestation of soil pests, through predation. The practise of crop rotations also breaks pest and disease lifecycles and significantly reduces crop losses through their infestations.
15) Reduced Field Preparation Cost and Time It has been proven that conventional commercial farmers spend 3 times as much on fuel, oil, tines, maintenance and repairs of machinery compared to a no ploughing technique. Our trials plots show that conventional farmers will spend nearly twice as long doing land preparation and fertilisation as compared to Farming God's Way farmers.
16) Reduced Fertiliser Losses Every year millions of tons of fertiliser is lost into the catchments through runoff losses. Farming God's Way minimises these losses, as well as ensuring that the fertiliser used is placed accurately in only the root zone of each planting station.
17) Improved Drought Tolerance and Risk Spread Farming God's Way improves crops drought tolerance by conserving moisture:
• by having 100% blanket cover
• improving soil structure
• and increasing the organic carbon levels in the soil
The practise of the 1/3rd rotation helps to spread the risk of a total crop failure in a disaster such as drought or regional pest outbreak.
18) Reduced Irrigation Costs The number of times that a crop gets irrigated can be drastically reduced due to the moisture conservation from not ploughing and having a high percentage of God’s Blanket.
19) Improved Crop Efficiency Farming God’s Way provides the ideal environment for crops to flourish by limiting its stresses, hereby greatly improving yields. The roots grow directly under the blanket, accessing the high fertility of the decomposing blanket and enjoying the readily available moisture in the upper levels of the profile.
20) Yield Improvements Dickson’s father got an average of 3 bags per year. Dickson inherited this field and changed from conventional farming to Farming God's Way.
Dickson:
1st Year 5 bags (with only 13% blanket cover);
2nd Year 45 bags
3rd Year 54 bags
4th Year 69 bags