Of all the no-tillers in the world, probably no one possesses the zest and pizazz of Ivan Myers of Oregon, Ohio. At 74 years of age, this no-tiller began farming the hard way, shocking wheat behind a grain binder and handling hay with a fork instead of a baler.

Today, he oversees his family’s no-till operation with sons, Bill and Bob. And he’d never think about going back to the plow.

“No matter what you do, you have to have a passion for what you’re doing,” he says. “If you don’t, you’re just not going to succeed. You work through all the problems, but boy, is it ever fun! I’m so hip on conservation tillage, I just can’t believe there’s another way to go.”

Myers has seen his share of problems. Not that it has ever stopped him from proclaiming the good news of no-till. This innovator has successfully no-tilled for two decades and possesses plenty of secrets you’ll be sure to find useful.

• Modified Strip-Till Tool.

“We were having problems planting corn like other no-tillers, so instead of abandoning the idea, I started looking for alternatives,” he says.

“I’d heard of Rawson’s zone-till system, but it was too expensive for us. So we took our corn planter and made some modifications.”

Myers’ modifications began with welding an extra frame on the front of the no-till planter. After reading an ad, he bought some Rawson coulters from a no-tilling neighbor, added them to the planter and installed trash whippers.

“We…