When you walk across a no-till field, Jill Clapperton says you’re walking on the rooftop of a bustling community. No-tilled soils teem with life, and with the right management techniques, you can use these busy organisms to your benefit, says the the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada soil biologist stationed at the Lethbridge Research Centre in Lethbridge, Alberta.

Increasing no-till yields is a matter of learning to “farm vertically,” maintains Ray Rawson. More than 40 years of no-tilling in northern Michigan have taught Rawson that it’s all about massive root systems and not ever about higher soybean plant populations.