The Rundahl family has had a highly successful 100% no-till program for more than 2 decades. But they've been quick to recognize that finding ways to improve is critical if you expect to continue with your no-till success.

Wet fall, wet spring, wet fall, wet spring. It seems no-tillers need to get used to making things work in a more aquatic-type system, our recent survey of No-Till Farmer readers found. In fact, how our readers’ no-till planter setups worked in wet conditions was a common thread in the replies we received.

Twenty-five years ago, my father, Loren Stokes, and I milked and fed a 100-cow dairy herd and were also tilling about 300 acres of farmland. Needless to say, we were busy daylight to dark. We both decided we were working too hard.

We live in an area of Lancaster County, Pa., where small dairy farms of 50 to 60 cows are common and fields are small. Many of the farms are Amish-owned, where real horses provide the power.

When people ask why I was the first farmer in our area of southeastern Iowa to start no-tilling 28 years ago, I answer that it was bred into me to control soil erosion any way I can — including extensive use of terraces and grass waterways. I couldn’t bear to see all that soil running into streams and rivers. I knew I had to do something to keep that from happening.

We're no doubt biased, but my family and I think there are few more breathtaking views of production agriculture than seen from the highest point of our farm in the Palouse region of eastern Washington. In midsummer, flowing fields of crops — which may include wheat, canola, barley, sunflowers, mustard, alfalfa, peas and lentils — stretch across the hills to the horizon.