One of No-Till Farmer's No-Till Legends, and a prominent figure in his native Chile and throughout South America, has died.

Carlos Crovetto Lamarca, who turned his farm Chequén into an experimental test plot for agriculturalists all over the world, died at home on June 17.

According to his Spanish-language obituary in the Argentine newspaper La Nacion, Crovetto took over the management of his farm at a young age. When he realized as early as the 1950s that tillage was the source of erosion, he rapidly converted his farm to no-till, and adopted direct seeding in the 1970s. He moved his least productive land into forestry and established permaculture pastures for grazing cattle.

"He was a born innovator, developer and tireless promoter of the new agricultural paradigm based on the abandonment of tillage and the implementation and adoption of the direct seeding system as a new and superior agro-productive model," the obituary, authored by Roberto Peiretti, reads in part.

Crovetto authored the book "Stubble Over the Soil," which was recently named among the top most influential works of no-till literature, and founded the Soil Conservation Society of Chile, and spoke at multiple meetings of the National No-Tillage Conference. 

"Without a doubt, his life and actions also leave an indelible mark on the historical process of evolution and improvement of the global agro-productive system," Peiretti wrote. 

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