Back in 1973, I never thought I would be a lifetime farmer. But when Dad decided to retire, corn was $4 a bushel and nitrogen was just 3 cents per pound. The future looked bright for agriculture. Most times, it still does.

Have you ever felt like you needed a little more space? If Greg Selbrede’s corn plants could talk, the Leon, Wis., no-tiller figures they would have been telling him they felt just a bit claustrophobic.

Feeding plants nitrogen fertilizer makes sense, Richard Mulvaney says. But fertilizer, like the food we eat, needs to be used in moderation. Too much is not good, the University of Illinois soil fertility specialist says.

While most Corn Belt no-tillers grow only corn and soybeans, Charlie Hammer prefers a three-way rotation. The operator of Hammer & Kavazanjian Farms with his wife Nancy Kavazanjian at Beaver Dam, Wis., prefers a no-till rotation evenly split between corn, soybeans and wheat in the farm’s 2,300-acre operation.