Joe Kern and his father, John, admit they’re still dealing with a learning curve. But through working with no-till practices they’re transforming their “clay pot” soils into acreage that recently produced up to 240-bushel corn and 80-bushel soybeans.

It’s been a journey for John Bruihler’s family and their no-till farming operations in Minnesota and Iowa — both literally and figuratively.

The relationship between manufacturers and farmers has never been seamless, yet in an industry where the complexity of precision services and equipment setups continues to escalate, the two sides need to be on the same page more than ever.

In the last 10 years I’ve seen no-till declining in my area. I simply don’t understand it, maybe it’s the draw of recreational tillage as we like to call it, but to me it’s just not sustainable in the long run.

WATCHING SOME OF the best soils we owned wash away in a big storm accelerated my family’s move to 100% no-till. My father, James, had tried no-tilling in the late 1960s, starting with soybeans behind the small amount of wheat we grew at that point.

It’s certainly possible to no-till high-yielding crops in northwest Ohio, but for Jan and Cindy Layman, it’s no cakewalk, either.