Hi Frogleg,

I had to go to my land now, I will give more detail if I can find it
in my notes when I'm back.

Dead body of life form(plant root, earthworm, fungus...) in soil
are
organic matter, this does not till in by man. For soil contain high
organic matter, tillage can avoided by the first day. For those
soil
void of organic matter, planting cover crop and mulch can work, but
do
take long time. So I choose to till in organic matter before
implement no-till system.

But if you were willing to wait "a long time," how would mulch make
it
down to the soil that needs to be improved? I have a lot of worms in
my compost, but the clay ground underneath is still...clay.

A soil lack of oxygen(water log, compact..) will hinder life
form(plant root, earthworn...) to go into it.

Eartthworm don't like low PH soil.


Tilling certainly kills plants
(weeds) and buries the remains, but that means *more* organic
matter
in the soil

Most weed are succulent, the organic matter in a form(starch...)
that
will not last long.

Maybe in Malaysia. Weeds here are pretty much regular ol' plants,
grasses, and vines.

Tillage do cause lost of those(humus...) that can
last long. So most of the time, organic matter introduce by
tillage
does not compensate the lost cause by it. In my case, I till in a
lot
of lignin(rice hull), and lost non(soil void of organic matter).

How does tilling reduce organic matter?

All organic matter can decopose to become carbon and nutrient.
Decoposition go faster when oxygen are available. This is why compost
pile are recommended to turn for airation. Tillage do bring in oxygen.


I have nothing against mulch. However, if the mown weeds contain
seeds
or parts that easily root, I don't see how this is any 'solution'
to
the problem of weeds competing with desired plants.

Weed can regrow from root, weed can grow from seed... But there is
mulch to suppress there grow. A transplat in polythene bag provide
a
good start. By the time weed push through the mulch, the transplant
already establish, can compete better than weed. Without weeding,
the
harvest are satisfactory. Of course I can weeding and make it look
like a normal garden, but just don't feel the need. I prefer spend
my
resource on other thing.

I don't know your methods, but around here, mulch has to be
regularly
re-applied to surpress weeds. And my experience is that desired
plants
that have to compete with weeds for water (in short supply at some
times of year) do poorly, no matter how vigorously they start out.

I'm refer to annual crop, vegetable..., those just take a few months
to mature. For perenial, mulch of course should be re-applied. There
is something else you had to do to make this work, but I can assure
you that it's working at my land.

Sorry! I'm in a rush, will not check my spelling or wording at all.

Regards,
Wong

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Latitude: 06.10N Longitude: 102.17E Altitude: 5m