WHEN PAUL OVERBY returned home to the family farm in Wolford, N.D., in 1993 after a 12-year career in politics and non-profit fundraising, he was immediately presented with a riddle. The year before, Overby’s father had had his best crop ever, achieving 80-bushel barley and 45-bushel wheat, on average, in a wheat/barley/flax rotation. 

“How did he get those extra bushels when he hadn’t fertilized for them?” Overby asks. “I figured it had to be something in the soil.”

Hearing various speakers over the years led Overby to realize what that “something” in the soil was -— the microbiology. 

Getting Regenerative. No-tilling since 2005, Overby says the top 6 inches of soil on his farm have long been very absorptive, but he discovered early on that the crop roots weren’t going deep enough to dig channels that would allow water to keep moving down, so water was getting trapped on top of the field.

“I had pudding on top of my soil,” he says, adding that it was his first sign that he really needed to adopt more soil health practices. That realization led him to North Dakota rancher Gabe Brown and the regenerative ag movement. “Gabe explained to me that if you’re going to no-till, you should work on your soil biology first,”…