Few, if any, farmers were spared the sticker shock of rising costs of fuel, fertilizer and ag chemicals in the past 16 months. But the reality is these costs have been steadily increasing for a decade or more as shown in Fig. 1.

When you look at our operation today, it’s difficult to believe that my dad, Eugene Berry, was a big fan of moldboard plowing. In fact, I even bought a new tractor and plow myself as recently as 1985. We were still plowing corn stalks, chiseling and field cultivating soybean ground until 1990.