Moldboard plowing, lots of secondary tillage and costly, environmentally damaging soil erosion were natural partners on our land in the late 1970s. At that time, I was taking over the family farm located on the Canadian side of Lake Erie, about 60 miles east of Detroit.

When the Christensen family moved to a new farming location in southwestern Wisconsin 5 years ago, they took a hard look at the many benefits of no-tilling.

In the 17 years that Terry Schneider, of Shirley, Ill., has been no-tilling, he’s tried as many planter systems as there are. Even today, with the latest technology, Schneider says he’s come full circle.

After sitting in on a no-till air seeder roundtable session during the 1998 National No-Tillage Conference, Donn Branton was primed for action. What he’d heard convinced him to consider a new way to achieve the precision planting necessary for attaining 100 bushel per acre yields of soft red winter wheat.