Leaving fields in fallow, and heavily tilling to keep them that way, is a deeply ingrained tradition in the often-parched southeastern corner of Montana, where I farm with my wife of 41 years, Lana.

We thought we had no-till down pretty good, at least as far as controlling water erosion, but Mother Nature always likes to put you in your place when you get a little too confident.

No-tiller Danny Wipf won't rest until every no-tilled seed is tucked firmly and accurately into the mellow no-till soils at the Lakeview Hutterite Colony.

Sometimes cover crops fail. This is especially true as no-tillers navigate the trial-and-error years of determining what species, seeding methods and timings work in their region and on their farm.

Our farm perplexed our crop advisor, Gerard Troisi. He consults with many farms in our area of Pennsylvania with a diverse range of production practices. But he struggled to explain how we increased our soil organic matter by 1% in just 3 years while consistently removing virtually all biomass.

Moisture savings is what first sparked C. Dale Sybesma, my father, to be interested in no-till. In our flat southeastern corner of South Dakota, moisture is often a challenge.

I wish I could rewind and start over no-tilling with what I know now. The longer we no-till, the more we learn about what was really happening in our fields as we made the transition, and what we could have done then to take our soils farther, faster.