No-tilling near Palmyra in southern Wisconsin on land just across the road from his childhood home, Tom Burlingham and his wife, Margaret, got a wake-up call about wind erosion during the 1981 planting season. It was the first year after they bought the farm from Tom’s parents. 

While preparing to put in a hay stand, Burlingham applied manure over the winter, worked the ground in the spring and seeded 15-16 pounds of alfalfa and 2 bushels of oats per acre.

“Then the wind started to blow,” Burlingham says. “We had 30-40 mile-per-hour winds, and they blew the seeding out. Gone.”

With his light, sandy soil drifted up along the fencerow and a quarter-inch of soot lining the windowsills, Burlingham knew he needed to do something different if his farm was to succeed. 

“I started wondering if it was possible to grow a crop with residue sitting on the field. Most people at the time said it couldn’t be done.”