This guest blog is based on comments originally left by No-Till Farmer reader John Meyer, a no-tiller with 400 acres just west of Stewartville, Minn. His comments were in response to Frank Lessiter’s May 2018 No-Till Farmer column titled, “Same Old Conservation Ideas, Just New Words to Describe Them.”

While there’s increasing emphasis on “sustainable agriculture” and “soil health,” these four buzzwords tend to ruffle the feathers of veteran no-tillers and others like myself who have followed the no-till movement for nearly a half century. It’s because we recognize that earlier generations of no-tillers were the original true innovators behind these “not-so-new” concepts that go back to the 1960s.

While seed companies would lead you to believe growers will be planting dicamba-tolerant soybeans this spring to improve yields or do a better job of controlling weeds, results from a No-Till Farmer survey indicate many will only be doing so to protect their bean crop against potential herbicide drift concerns from neighboring soybean fields.

While natural disasters cannot be prevented, the power of healthy soils can help reduce certain damaging impacts.