Peter Rost Jr., who no-tills 3,500 acres of corn, soybeans and rice near New Madrid, Mo., discusses the cover crops he's seeding behind corn and what his ultimate goals are for covers on his farm.

Trey Hill of Harborview Farms in Rockhall, Md., talks about the cover crop test plot they’re working on with University of Maryland soil scientist Ray Weil through a program with the Howard G. Buffett Foundation. They’re studying the amount of nutrients the cover crops can hold onto and when Harborview Farms can expect to see those nutrients used by their cash crops.

Desperation pushed us into no-till. It was the early 1980s and it wasn’t a great time to be a farmer. It also wasn’t a great time to need new equipment, which we did, unfortunately. We were out of money so instead of buying big new tractors and heavy new tillage implements, we made a few tweaks to our planter, took a deep breath and started no-tilling our crops.