Imagine that instead of watching the weather and worrying about when to no-till, someone else does it for you. You wouldn’t have to worry about fertilizers, chemicals, weeds or even harvest.

Instead of breaking your back all season long, you can take a summer vacation with the family and be confident that all your no-tilling tasks will be done with professional precision.

Sound too good to be true? It’s not!

It’s exactly this kind of luxury that Brad Mathson of Whitehall, Wis., provides to clients who have other important things that demand their full attention.

“Our clients are mostly area dairy farmers who need the feed for their herds,” he explains. “We’re getting larger and larger acreage customers and as these dairies expand, they simply don’t have the time to take care of crops.”

Since dairy farming demands milking two or three times daily, there isn’t a whole lot of time left over for no-tilling. This, plus the fact that more dairies are looking to expand, making 1,000-cow herds more and more common, makes this kind of crop service a real benefit for the dairy industry.

Getting Started

Working at Whitehall Agricultural Services, a farm supply business in Whitehall, Wis., since ‘82, Mathson began testing no-till, slot-till and several other reduced tillage methods. But what he really wanted was a new no-till planter.

“I figured if I could get four people to commit to a custom no-tilling business, I’d have it paid for,” he says. “Right away, a half-dozen farmers…