In an effort to quickly develop new lines of chickpeas that yield well in dry conditions, researchers in India are using genetic markers to speed up the breeding process, says the Crop Science Society of America.

My son, Mike, and I recently spent 6 days looking at no-till in the Palouse, a 3,000-square-mile area located in the southeastern corner of Washington, north central Idaho and northeast Oregon. While I've visited this area several times where no-tillers grow crops on slopes as steep as 60%, I’d never been there during harvest of wheat, barley, peas, lentils and garbanzo beans.