Most modern agronomists would laugh at the planting dates followed by our forefathers. Times were different. The economy was different. And the information we knew about the soil, most effective planting dates and what it ultimately means to the crop was definitely different.

California has long been one of the most productive agricultural areas of the world. Partly for that reason, growers there are often understandably reluctant to try new farming methods, especially when rising fuel and labor costs and market competition are shrinking profit margins.

When it comes to strip-tilling effectively, Tony and Doug Anderson benefit from both farming and equipment dealer experience. Besides farming 2,500 acres, the brothers own Anderson Equipment, a shortline dealership selling planting and tillage equipment at Washington Court House, Ohio.

If I had to pick out one consistent thing about no-tilling that I have observed over and over, it is that most no-till benefits come with continuous no-till — season to season and crop to crop. That’s the message I delivered last winter to attendees at the 2005 National No-Tillage Conference just a few days after I retired from the Natural Resources Conservation Service. And it’s the message I would like to expand upon as a private consultant: It’s time for the no-till community to aim higher.

A series of dry springs and a problem with potential carryover of a soybean herbicide back in the 1980s were the two primary incentives that drove us to try no-till.

When we're asked if we “created” our name as a marketing strategy, we are quick to point out we’re the fourth generation of Sweets to grow sweet corn in northeastern Ohio. My great-grandfather Dermott Sweet started the operation in 1880, and for more than a century we were primarily a wholesale company.