Overall, the nodig plot harvest 10% more. but here's where it gets interesting. those yields were not uniformly spread across the vegetable types. if you dig into the data, you'll see, some did quite worse with dig and some did quite better. guess which ones did better on dig? Potatoes, Rutabagas, carrots and parsnips and cabbage all did better in Dig! roughly to the tune of about Potatoes 21%, carrots 21%, Rutabaga 14%, Cabbage, 11%, broad beans 10% better. it's all published in his books. Everything else did better with no dig. Shallots especially did 33% better with no-dig, ales 21% better, onions 22% better with no dig.
Other arguments for tilling exist: aeration, mixing-in of new organic content/fertilizer (not really necessary: green waste can just be dumped at surface level in many cases, and this is already becoming more common in mass-agriculture with 'cover crops'), furrow-creation for seed planting, etc.
Fundamentally, leaving a field uncovered for any length of time is bad and destroys the soil more than if you'd just let it grow weeds or a temporary crop for awhile then culled that as in-place fertilizer for a next crop.
A few months ago some friends of mine visited Australia from overseas and I took them to one of the older wineries in the area. The winery manages something like 10-20 major fields. They brought in a new viticulturalist to manage the fields and the first thing he did was introduce cover crops. In the tasting, they brought out soil cores from before and after the changes, which had only been in place for two years. The difference was tremendous. The old methods, unquestioned for decades, left the soil dry, poor, and largely infertile. The new methods restored organic matter, moisture retention, and a significant sub-surface biome.
I have around 45 acres of heavy clay, poor agricultural land, which would look very similar to that if we allowed heavy machinery, or even an ATV, on it when it is sodden.
Maybe they knew a thing or two (low earthquake zone, it has to be said)
I mean even Karl Marx talked a ton about soil health and while he mostly talked about "metabolic rift" not tilling (that I know about) specifically it seems like a similar focus on short term output vs long term soil health.
I guess I'm just not clear on if there is actually a new serious problem being "revealed" as the title says or just being substantiated further.
https://www.washington.edu/news/2026/03/19/earthquake-scient...
At the very least it adds a new vector to the position. I was also unaware of how receptive to disruption fiber optic cables were. So, at least I learned that.
