Water, water everywhere. Or at least a lot of rain to hamper no-tillers across the country. A few of them brought their shared frustrations to Farmers’ Forum, the online bulletin board at www.no-tillfarmer.com, where they found both sympathy and answers. Alas, rain wasn’t the only thing running downhill. So was a planter — sideways — in Pennsylvania. But again, Farmers’ Forum visitors chipped in ideas to resolve the problem. Now we bring all of these ideas to you, just in case it should ever rain a little too much in your fields, too.

Questions often arise among no-tillers concerning the best height at which to leave small grain stubble. At the Semiarid Prairie Agricultural Research Centre at Swift Current, Saskatchewan, Canada, researchers set out to find answers by no-tilling four spring crops into three residue combinations.