My son, Mike, and I recently spent 6 days looking at no-till in the Palouse, a 3,000-square-mile area located in the southeastern corner of Washington, north central Idaho and northeast Oregon. While I've visited this area several times where no-tillers grow crops on slopes as steep as 60%, I’d never been there during harvest of wheat, barley, peas, lentils and garbanzo beans.

My son, Mike, and I spent 6 days in mid-August looking at no-till in the Palouse, a 3,000-square-mile area located in the southeastern corner of Washington, north central Idaho and northeast Oregon.

Properly handling straw, chaff and stalks as they exit the combine is key to managing your residue throughout the year with no-till. It’s due to the fact that effective residue management influences erosion control, moisture conservation, seed placement, fertilizer distribution, crop emergence and weed control.

Agronomist Guy Swanson’s family farm south of Spokane, Wash., has been completely no-till since 1973 and has not been plowed since 1968. Swanson believes those farmers who want to get the most from their land should use anhydrous ammonia to decrease input costs and increase yields. He also thinks other no-tillers could gain from a fuller understanding of the benefits of anhydrous.