With record breaking droughts, winds and downpours shattering farmlands in many areas around the country, this year was particularly tough for no-tillers to plant and harvest on time and still get a decent crop.

That is, except for Ed Winkle.

This no-tiller, crop consultant and FFA advisor from Blanchester, Ohio, has discovered a new approach that allows him to plant the same day and in some cases, harvest an additional 50 bushels per acre over conventionally tilling neighbors.

The method is called Nu-Till and it’s a system being marketed by Ag Spectrum of DeWitt, Joux and Martin and Company in Elkton, Ky. And it definitely has the potential for being a “new and improved” no-till method for the next century.

The Discovery

Winkle’s illumination toward the system began as a result of an Internet discussion group.

“I met Paul Reed of Washington, Iowa, on the computer,” he says. “I think he saw I had a curious mind and we struck up a conversation. He said, ‘This is what we plant with.’ I couldn’t believe it. It looked like something from outerspace. He and his brothers Kevin and Nick came up with it. It was only about a year ago that I tried it.”

And he’s been hooked ever since.

“This is the culmination of 15 years of trials and tribulations,” creator Paul Reed says. “Mother nature has the soil in perfect shape until you touch it,” Nick explains. “Running a coulter in front of the double-disc opener disrupts the soil…