The so-called “green bridge” could be stealing yields from no-till fields without the growers’ knowledge. The green bridge is the method by which soil and foliar pathogens feed on cover crops, weeds or volunteer crops and survive long enough to infect a new season’s cash crops.

Agronomist Guy Swanson’s family farm south of Spokane, Wash., has been completely no-till since 1973 and has not been plowed since 1968. Swanson believes those farmers who want to get the most from their land should use anhydrous ammonia to decrease input costs and increase yields. He also thinks other no-tillers could gain from a fuller understanding of the benefits of anhydrous.

Over the years since my dad started no-tilling in 1978, we’ve had a lot to learn — and not much of a growing season to learn it in. On our extreme northern farm that is less than 30 miles south of the Canadian border, we’re lucky to get 90 to 110 frost-free days, creating a situation not unlike Siberia (our average January temperature is minus 5 degrees Fahrenheit). This year we even had snow on May 11.

Dwayne Beck is known for a lot of things, perhaps crop rotations most of all. This Pierre, S.D., no-tiller manages the Dakota Lakes Research Farm at Pierre, S.D., and dedicates a lot of his time to studying the improvement of no-till operations with the help of crop rotations.

Imgaine gaining 20 more bushels of corn per acre or similarly significant jumps in soybean, wheat and other crop yields. It could be possible next year just just by treating the phosphorus applied to your no-till fields with a new compound designed to improve uptake of the nutrient.

Just about every no-tiller I’ve ever met would agree that at some point you start to wonder if you were really smart to move away from the “safety” of conventional systems.