As a spirited young farmer, Von Mohler drove from Sidney, Ohio, to Hopkinsville, Ky., to see no-tiller Harry Young. He didn’t find Young, but did see impressive no-till fields.

When you walk across a no-till field, Jill Clapperton says you’re walking on the rooftop of a bustling community. No-tilled soils teem with life, and with the right management techniques, you can use these busy organisms to your benefit, says the the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada soil biologist stationed at the Lethbridge Research Centre in Lethbridge, Alberta.

Manure simply doesn’t get the respect that it probably deserves. While some might chuckle at this comment, Dirk Axe points out that manure provides valuable nutrients that, when handled correctly, can be used as low-cost fertilizer in no-till crop production.

A few years ago, David Dukes, a no-tiller who farms highly erodible land in southwestern Iowa, was interested in protecting his land from erosion. His primary goal: avoid water erosion.

This year's National No-Tillage Conference raised interesting questions on whether or not no-tilled corn will be profitable in 2001. Four panelists joined forces to bring no-tillers 22 different tips on how to make no-tilling corn profitable.

Since the dawn of time, farmers have been using manure to fertilize their fields. And why not? It’s cheap, there’s a lot of it and it yields definite advantages to producing a healthy crop.