Some no-tillers, whether they recognize it or not, practice weed control without ever really coming to grips with the subject, says Bryan Young, a Southern Illinois University weed scientist.

Jeff Martin stays flexible, ready to ride the currents in technology and world markets that threaten some family farms.

If I had to pick out one consistent thing about no-tilling that I have observed over and over, it is that most no-till benefits come with continuous no-till — season to season and crop to crop. That’s the message I delivered last winter to attendees at the 2005 National No-Tillage Conference just a few days after I retired from the Natural Resources Conservation Service. And it’s the message I would like to expand upon as a private consultant: It’s time for the no-till community to aim higher.

A series of dry springs and a problem with potential carryover of a soybean herbicide back in the 1980s were the two primary incentives that drove us to try no-till.

If ever there was an article to pass on to neighbors who have talked about switching to no-tilling but haven’t because of the horror stories they’ve heard about the transition period, this is the one.

It took me almost 12 years to learn that you can’t dabble with no-tilling. You either have to commit 100 percent or forget about it.