Some college professors still don’t get it when it comes to seeing the many benefits of no-till. While hundreds of thousands of growers around the world are cashing in with no-till, there are still folks who pour cold water on getting good yields without tilling.

A case in point is a recent worldwide analysis by a team led by researchers at the University of California-Davis. In a study published in Nature magazine, these researchers examined results from over 5,000 side-by-side observations from around the world that were included in 610 peer-reviewed university studies.

First, The Good News

The authors admitted no-till can improve long-term productivity, profits and food security, particularly with climate change. They recognized no-till is less time-consuming and can be more cost-effective than conventional tillage, but concluded that no-till often leads to significant yield declines.

To put it bluntly, their research methodology was flawed. They admitted that they neglected to consider the impact residue retention and crop rotation had on no-till. And with no-till leaving 55% to 75% residue on the soil surface, I don’t understand why these researchers don’t believe residue retention is a critical part of no-till. In fact, the researchers said that if they had looked at the value of residue retention and rotation, the no-till results would have been different.

Even though the researchers said there are 275 million acres of no-till in the world today, somehow these so-called experts are not convinced this is necessarily a good thing.

In regions with a moist…