When Matt Braun was in high school, his father switched the family’s southwestern Oklahoma farm from a conventional-till wheat/cattle/milo operation to no-till, mainly to reduce labor and equipment costs.

Soil health tests can help you understand whether you have the microbial activity to supply nutrients to plants or whether your soil structure is sufficient to allow air and water to flow. If you’re going to send soil samples to a lab, the quality of samples you collect is very important. Here are a few rules of thumb for soil health test sampling from the University of Minnesota.