MACAULEY “MAC” KINCAID, of Jasper, Mo., comes strolling out of his house on a muggy summer morning, smartphone in one hand, coffee in the other. Wearing a hipster-style trucker hat, he carries himself with a palpable confidence and ease. Despite his youth, Kincaid knows what he’s doing when it comes to his 650-acre farm that is 100% no-till and cover cropped, with 70% of the land being used for grazing cattle.

No-Till, Covers Boost Yields

Kincaid wasn’t always a no-tiller and cover crop aficionado, though. He started conventional farming in 2012 with limited success. His first corn yield was only 98 bushels per acre, while wheat yielded 80 bushels per acre. 

The lackluster performance led Kincaid to begin researching no-till practices. He met no-till legends Gabe Brown and Ray Archuleta, who have become his mentors.

“I was watching a lot of YouTube videos and reading anything I could find on no-till, and what it kept coming back to was that I needed a cover crop with the no-tilling,” he says. “I decided to no-till my wheat and soybeans, but everybody said you couldn’t no-till corn in my environment. I tried no-tilling corn, and it was still a flop. I think it was because of my pore space. I couldn’t get enough oxygen in the soil, and the soil couldn’t breathe. The soil was tightly compacted because of the previous year’s soybeans and a fallow period.”

“So, I tried cereal rye as a cover crop. The first soybean harvest after using…