Editor’s Note: This list, prepared by Ohio State University, complements the YOUR NO-TILL HISTORY article on “World’s Longest Continuing No-Till Plots at Ohio State Hit 60 Years” that appeared in the February 2023 edition of No-Till Farmer.
This list, last prepared in 2012, recognizes the wide-ranging impact that Ohio State’s Triplett-Van Doren No-Till Experimental Plots had on no-till’s scientific community. As was stated in the 2023 article noted above, if Herndon, Ky. was ground zero for commercial no-till (the farm of pioneer Harry M. Young, Jr.), then Ohio State must be regarded as ground zero for no-till research and science.
By 2012, the number of published studies from the OSU plots in the first 50 years totaled 70, a number estimated to be near 100 today. “And then there was all the other universities who’ve taken soil samples,” retired ag extension engineer Randall Reeder said. “Warren Dick (retired Emeritus Professor of Soil Science at OSU, who had primary responsibility for the plots from 1980-2016) used to joke about the amount of soil removed from those plots, one soil core at a time.”