Water, water everywhere. Or at least a lot of rain to hamper no-tillers across the country. A few of them brought their shared frustrations to Farmers’ Forum, the online bulletin board at www.no-tillfarmer.com, where they found both sympathy and answers. Alas, rain wasn’t the only thing running downhill. So was a planter — sideways — in Pennsylvania. But again, Farmers’ Forum visitors chipped in ideas to resolve the problem. Now we bring all of these ideas to you, just in case it should ever rain a little too much in your fields, too.

Wet Dirt, What To Do? We’ve been mostly no-till for years. Our ground doesn’t dry out very well. My split row planter is set up as a Nu-Till rig. I’ve planted several years of soybeans, but I’m not satisfied because of wet dirt. A few beans rot before others come up.

We use a Phoenix harrow and it helps some, but not a lot. I am curious if an Aerway run in the fall would help. I’m in northcentral Missouri and farm rolling to flat land. The soil ranges from light silt loam to clay silt loam.

—Bob Cooper, rjcooper@cvalley.net

I had the same problem, and it seemed that each year the fields in continuous no-till got worse. We considered the Phoenix harrow, an Aerway, cover crops, etc. After closer evaluation, I concluded that the use of no-till had brought back a healthy population of worms that were drilling thousands of holes and creating a sponge out…