When you walk across a no-till field, Jill Clapperton says you’re walking on the rooftop of a bustling community. No-tilled soils teem with life, and with the right management techniques, you can use these busy organisms to your benefit, says the the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada soil biologist stationed at the Lethbridge Research Centre in Lethbridge, Alberta.

As far back as the days of Aristotle, worms were referred to as the intestines of the soil.

No-tillers may choose not to rip their soils, but some situations make a strong case for the practice, suggests Dean Holst, who farms 1,700 acres of hilly but productive ground near LeClaire, Iowa.

Cliff Roberts has been fall strip tilling for a dozen years. The Kentland, Ind., farmer is pretty blunt about why he likes to fall strip till for no-tilled corn grown on silt loam soils.