Desperation pushed us into no-till. It was the early 1980s and it wasn’t a great time to be a farmer. It also wasn’t a great time to need new equipment, which we did, unfortunately. We were out of money so instead of buying big new tractors and heavy new tillage implements, we made a few tweaks to our planter, took a deep breath and started no-tilling our crops.

While it was initially a forced issue, it didn’t take long for us to see it was the right decision no matter what. We weren’t using cover crops back then, so it took a couple of years to see a real benefit.

After 3 years of no-tilling we had a couple very dry years. We were able to harvest our corn crops during these tough times while our conventionally farming neighbors had to resort to chopping their corn to recoup their investment. That was one of the first signs we were doing the right thing.

Rain also brought about some realizations. My neighbor called me up after we got a 5-inch rain and asked what on earth we were doing so differently in our fields. He had observed the water flowing off his field was muddy and full of sediment, while the water coming off my field was nice and clear. I felt pretty…