Dwayne Beck is known for a lot of things, perhaps crop rotations most of all. This Pierre, S.D., no-tiller manages the Dakota Lakes Research Farm at Pierre, S.D., and dedicates a lot of his time to studying the improvement of no-till operations with the help of crop rotations.

Thanks to the magic of computers, no-tillers and would-be no-tillers from the far corners of the Earth can conveniently get together. That’s what happened recently, when growers from Scotland, England, New Zealand and the U.S. met at Farmers Forum, No-Till Farmer’s online message board. Here’s how they found common ground.

A lot has changed at the Worth and Dee Ellis farm in Eminence, Ky., since 1999 when No-Till Farmer published a story about our operation. We farm more land now.

One of the most popular speakers to ever appear on a National No-Tillage Conference program, Dwayne Beck, will be in Des Moines to share his highly innovative no-tilling ideas with you at next winter’s 12th annual National No-Tillage Conference. For more effective no-tilling when it’s too hot, too cold, too wet or too dry, Beck will have many of the no-till answers that you need!

When compacted soils become a problem, as they can anywhere in the country, cover crops can be an effective solution, according to experienced no-till farmers. But you need to know which crop will work in your area to provide the kind of long tap roots needed. Visitors to Farmer’s Forum, the message board of No-Till Farmer, offered a number of possibilities recently. We share their ideas here, as well as thoughts about an assortment of other topics.

For Mike Guetterman, who farms 7,000 no-till acres with his father and brothers, small details make a big difference in the success of a continuous no-till program.