To Phil Needham, successful no-tilling doesn’t begin when planters hit the ground in spring: it’s during harvest, when many growers think the growing season is ending.

Uneven residue spread during harvest can start a chain reaction of poor agronomic results the following growing season, including uneven soil temperatures, poor seedbed conditions and final stands, disease issues and more, says Needham, the founder of Calhoun, Ky.-based Needham Ag Technologies. 

Improper combine setup compounds the problems no-tillers face at planting time, says Needham, who has spent decades working with growers to build successful farm operations. “Residue management to me is the difference between a good farmer and a bad farmer. It’s that clear and dry and simple,” Needham recently told attendees at the 2026 National No-Tillage Conference in St. Louis.

Begging for Problems

Needham has conducted stand counts for 37 years and finds it easy to correlate stands with surface residue levels in addition to emergence and early growth differences.

“The big difference is we can now measure the differences in residue distribution by quantifying the amount downforce, which shows residue streaks at a 90-degree angle to the seeder pass,” he says. 

“As an example, the Precision Planting SeederForce system, with hydraulic cylinders on each row of a John Deere drill or air-seeder, shows…