“I can't get my wife to no-till the garden,” laments Bill Coppess while walking through the family tomato patch on the way to one of his residue-covered, Ansonia, Ohio, wheat fields.

I’m the fourth generation to manage McClure Farms in the area of southwestern Kansas that is depicted as the heart of the 1930’s Dust Bowl.

Like many farmers, Matt and Glenn Kathol turned to no-till to manage the workload on their family farm. But their switch to no-till in 2001 also made it possible for Kathol to farm full time with his father, Glenn.

When Bryan Poppelreiter pulls his no-till planter into the field, he understands that absolute planting perfection probably isn’t going to happen. But that doesn’t mean he won’t shoot for a picket-fence stand that pops out of the soil evenly up and down, as well as side to side.

It doesn’t seem possible that I’ve been no-tilling for 30 years. I don’t know if you would call me a pioneer, but no-till was almost unheard of in north central South Dakota in 1979.

Count Keith Reha in as one of the many no-tillers taking a hard look at their soybean seed expenses, and questioning the tools and even the row width they use with no-till soybeans.

From his farm office lined with county yield awards, Roger Dobbins stands firm that no-till can pay even on his flat, poorly drained Cedarville, Ohio, fields.

If there’s one thing farming has proven to Johnny Davis, it’s that there is nothing constant.