No-Till Legend and 2002 No-Till Innovator recipient Glover B. Triplett Jr. died March 30, 2024, at the age of 93.
Triplett did some of the early research on no-till as an Ohio State University weed scientist in the early 1960s and quickly heard criticism of the practice.
"My late wife grew up on a farm in Mississippi, and her father took pride in clean cultivation," Triplett recalled in an interview with No-Till Farmer. "After I’d been at this for a couple of years, I took her out to show her what I was doing. We looked at some corn plants about a foot tall in a field, where there’d been corn the previous year. The old stalks and dead weeds were there. She said, ‘Glover, this looks terrible. They’re going to fire you.’”
MODIFIED PLANTERS. With the help of ag engineers like Dr. Bill Johnson who modified planters for no-till, Glover Triplett (pictured) conducted pioneering no-till research at OSU before “retiring” in 1982 and joining Mississippi State University a year later. Mississippi State University
But Triplett persisted with the research and went onto start the longest on-going no-till research plots in the world at Ohio State University’s Wooster facility. These extensive plots have produced valuable no-till data for more than 55 years with over 75 scientific papers having been published by educators based on results from these plots.
"This study is endowed and continues today. After more than 50 years, there is no indication tillage that will be required to maintain crop productivity," reads Triplett's obituary, which he wrote himself in 2015.
After retiring from Ohio State, Triplett enjoyed a part-time career as a plant and soil agronomist with Mississippi State University. His research looked at how to adapt no-till for crops in the South. Over many years, he showed farmers how to use no-till to convert severely nutrient- and soil-depleted fields back into highly productive cropland.
(L-R) Retired NRCS Chief Bill Richards, No-Till Legends Glover Triplett and Dave Van Doren, and retired Ohio State University dean Bobby Moser pose for a photo at the dedication of the Triplett-van Doren plots in 2003.
The visitation and funeral service were held in Starkville, Miss., on Friday. In lieu of flowers, memorial gifts may be made to the Triplett Endowed Professorship in Agronomy within the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, MSU Foundation, P. O. Box 6149, Mississippi State, MS 39762. Online donations may be made at msufoundation.com and designated to the fund number 501903.
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