OUR farm in southwestern Iowa has been a leader in soil conservation since the “dirty” 1930s. My father was one of the first individuals to install field terraces on our highly erodible land to slow water runoff and save the topsoil. We’ve kept a copy of the Des Moines Sunday Register from October 1968 that describes how Dad (Edgar Wahling) and I constructed the first push-up grassed-backslope terrace in the United States.

There's a buzz — some of it positive, some not — coming out of southeastern Minnesota about a new strip-tilling machine. The chatter focuses on Mark Bauer’s Soil Warrior, which he says provides an unprecedented balance between conventional tillage and no-till.

Limited rainfall and plenty of warm chinooks moving east off the nearby Rocky Mountain range in late winter create an environment in which properly managing moisture is essential for Alberta growers.

Sunlight interception is the name of the game when it comes to producing a good no-till soybean crop, maintains Jim Beuerlein, agronomist at Ohio State University.

Dean Holst, who no-tills 1,700 acres in the hilly, but productive area near LeClaire, Iowa, has made the switch back to 30-inch row corn. For several years, Holst had no-tilled in 24-inch rows.