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NAME: Donn Branton

LOCATION: LeRoy, N.Y.

YEARS NO-TILLING: 23

ACRES NO-TILLED: 1,300

CROPS NO-TILLED: No-tills processing peas, wheat, oats and alfalfa; strip-tills soybeans, grain corn, sweet corn and dry beans; zone-tills grain corn, soybeans and oats

I’m trying to figure out the best practices to manage each of our acres in an economical way. I’m not just going to stick with one practice across the whole farm to say I’m doing it. It has to show returns.

That’s one of the reasons I don’t just no-till. Over the years, I’ve found there’s a place for “pure” no-till, zone-till and strip-till on my farm.

Diverse Soils

The region where I farm is known as the breadbasket of New York. Nearby Rochester is known as Flour City due to all the flour mills that used to be located there.

It’s a fertile area, but it presents its challenges, such as rocks. One area on my farm has bedrock that sticks right out of the ground. There’s a stone quarry nearby, but the bedrock on my side of the highway isn’t good enough to mine, so we farm it.

I raise processing peas, soybeans, sweet corn, grain corn, dry beans, wheat, oats and alfalfa on hills and hollows with soils that vary from loamy to sandy to high clay. Some are deep soils; others are very shallow.

The blanket approach doesn’t work for me for fertility or inputs like fungicides. I continually work and plan to make sure each of…