We've been no-tilling for nearly 20 years, but the history of conservation on our vegetable farm goes back to the mid ’60s. That’s when we first walked away from the moldboard plow.

Will a cover crop residue roller – considered essential in South American no-till fields – add value in the northern Great Plains? Dr. Dwayne Beck is studying that question under environmental conditions that are the equivalent of being several hundred miles north of tropical Paraguay and Brazil.

A strict no-till corn-and-soybean rotation leads you down a path to trouble. The more practical kind of diversity that you can work into your no-till system, the better.

No-tillers once again faithfully took to their keyboards and continued to make the Farmer’s Forum on the No-Till Farmer Web site, www.no-tillfarmer.com, a huge success. Two of the more interesting topics from the last month of postings have to do with using wheat as a cover crop and if it’s a good idea to use a rolling stalk chopper before no-tilling into corn residue.

When the hunters track across Jerry Lamp's fields in November, they wonder why the no-till soybeans haven't been combined. If they look closer, they'll find there aren't any beans or pods-only stems.

Aerial seeding of winter rye into standing corn may reduce soybean cyst nematode populations and — at least on some soil types — boost yields by up to 4 bushels per acre.

While a mixture of corn and sorghum is seeded in the pheasant rearing pens, lambsquarter is a favored protective cover crop.