For the past few years, folks in Pennsylvania have heard reports from Midwestern states of continuous corn growers struggling to control populations of western corn rootworms that developed resistance to some Bt corn varieties.

As escalating corn prices have encouraged many farmers to switch to growing corn continuously, they wonder why they have been seeing unusually high yield reductions over the past several years.

Corn residues are a major factor contributing to lower yields for corn following corn compared to corn rotated with soybean, particularly under no-till management.

Part of the opportunity for me to recently present the “S.H. Phillips Distinguished Lecture In No-Till Agriculture” at the University of Kentucky was the chance to spend the day talking with faculty members and graduate students from around the world. Phillips was a pioneer in the early 1960s in getting no-till started on a commercial scale. And he would certainly be proud to know no-till has grown to an astounding 288 million acres today around the world.

One of the comments No-Till Farmer editors heard while pulling together material for last month’s 40th-anniversary issue was that some educators aren’t on board in promoting no-till. Such appears to be the case with Emerson Nafziger, who continues to devote considerable effort to the need for tillage