I NEED PROOF. I like to try things. I’ll give practices, products, technologies and equipment a try, but they need to prove themselves before they’re taken full scale on our farm. No-till made the cut. Other practices, like cover crops, are a work in progress.

Too often farmers are inundated with the latest and greatest products or practices that promise big results without repeatable, third-party data to back up the claims. The trouble with farming is that conditions are so variable and margins so tight, you’ve really got to collect your own data to get an accurate picture. 

Even when you think you have the data, conditions change and what you thought you knew goes out the window.

Putting in the work to do trials and leave test strips pays in the long run. We took the same approach to no-till on our farm, and it didn’t take long to prove its worth.

Our family has been farming in southern Manitoba for 105 years. My dad was among the first in the area to try reduced tillage…