When Jack Herricks was 12 years old, his neighbor told him something about the importance of conservation that would stick with him through his whole life.

Our farm perplexed our crop advisor, Gerard Troisi. He consults with many farms in our area of Pennsylvania with a diverse range of production practices. But he struggled to explain how we increased our soil organic matter by 1% in just 3 years while consistently removing virtually all biomass.

It's kind of a "chicken or the egg" question: Which comes first, soil health or earthworms?

Thirteen thousand pounds of residue sounds like a lot to manage, but on Bret Margraf's farm it's not something to worry about.

While the purpose behind modern no-tilling can sometimes get lost in the machinations of fertilizers, machines and GPS signals, Jill Clapperton offered as a simple example of how crop residue fuels no-till systems.

No-tilling slopes as steep as 60% that receive as little as 12 inches of annual moisture and summer-time temperatures that frequently run over 100 degrees F., John Aeschliman has been successfully no-tilling in the Palouse area of eastern Washington for more than 40 years.