After years of helping countless farmers make a lot of money, I finally decided to try and make a go of it myself. In 2007 I bought 7,000 acres of farmable ground in northeast Morawa, Australia, and am now officially a no-till farmer and consultant.

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.

Yield monitors are an unparalleled data-collection device for on-farm testing, says Tom Doerge, Pioneer precision farming specialist.