Scientists have found that most of the sediment entering the Tobacco Creek Watershed in Canada is coming from nature, not farms.

Davie Stephens of Wingo, Ky., talks about how no-till has prevented erosion and built soil tilth and health over the past few decades. Stephens' father started no-till in the late 1970s, and after Stephens joined him in 1988, they went to 100% no-till in the early 1990s. Stephens also explains how no-till drove them to adopting cover crops so they could continue building soil health and preventing soil erosion.

Willis Jepson of Orlinda, Tenn., shares the benefits his family’s farm has achieved from more than 20 years of no-tilling corn, soybeans and wheat on their rolling landscape, including higher organic matter levels and a difference in soil tilth.

SoilCalculator's updated web interface provides quicker results than in the past. And, report outputs quantify the economics of lost production due to erosion under different management alternatives.

In case you missed them, here are the items that have garnered the most interest from other farmers in the month of April.

What happens when living organisms die? They decompose. The basics of the life cycle are well known to most people. In the terrestrial carbon cycle, plants use photosynthesis to harvest energy from the sun and carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, storing them as carbon-rich materials in their tissues.

No-till crop production provides benefits through reduced soil erosion and soil moisture loss, which potentially increases yield.