It was a challenging year for Conservation Ag Operator Fellow Michael Thompson. Our Dan Crummett caught up with the Almena, Kan., no-tiller to chat about some of his top takeaways from a very dry growing season. 

Dan Crummett: “What did you learn from 2025?”

Michael Thompson: “There is resiliency in the system. It doesn’t take a lot of moisture to grow a crop. It takes a lot of moisture to grow a *good* crop. With that resiliency piece in there, that soil really wants to yield for you.”

Dan Crummett: “That resilience — explain again what you’re talking about there.”

“The stuff that we’ve done with long-term no-till, trying to keep soil covered as much as possible. Every little bit of moisture you get goes that much further.”

“What were your yields like?”

Michael Thompson: “Soybeans were anywhere between 28-38, and we didn’t even figure that we were going to harvest soybeans at all, that it was a total loss. But we did get some rains there in August that they did go ahead and green back up. Corn was all over the board depending on where it rained and where it didn’t.”

“Looking back on it, for the spotty rains we had, we were lucky that we had a harvest because a lot of those acres were corn on corn. When we don’t have a soil profile and we don’t get the rains, it’s hard to make anything yield because there wasn’t much moisture to be had this year.”

Big thanks once again to Michael Thompson for giving us a peak behind the curtain throughout the year.