Nick Guetterman, as interviewed by Martha Mintz, explains why his family moved away from air seeding their cereal rye cover crop.

Nick Guetterman, as interviewed by Martha Mintz, explains the crop inputs his family applies to their winter wheat crop.

High interest rates were the push my dad and uncle needed to make the switch to no-till on our farm. They had long raised wheat, corn and soybeans on our generally flat Brookston clay fields that sit just 30 miles north and south, respectively of Lake Erie and Lake Huron.

In the late 1980s, farmers in my region seemed to be stuck on a production plateau, or were even losing ground. Everyone was growing only spring wheat or barley and leaving half their acres in black fallow every year.