When corn roots grow strong and stretch beyond 8½ feet deep, you must be doing something right.

In the Mid-1980s, we switched from moldboard plowing to a conservation farming system of chisel plowing, discing and planting. It was the recommended soil saving system of the time, but we seemed to be stuck in place.

Equipment choices might be the most common subject among no-tillers. Or maybe it’s the weather. Or maybe how the weather changes soil conditions, and thus equipment choices. Whatever, it’s all covered in these excerpts from recent postings at Farmer’s Forum, the online bulletin board at www.no-tillfarmer.com.

"If you want to double the size of your farm, farm vertically,” says Ray Rawson. The developer of several pieces of zone tillage equipment and a no-till corn and soybean producer from Farwell, Mich., for many years has taken the time to look beneath the soil surface. The result has been higher yields on his own and and many other farms.

Because of growing interest in zone tillage, we asked Ray Rawson to answer the most frequently asked questions about this in-row tilling concept. A veteran no-tiller from Farwell, Mich., Rawson pioneered this unique reduced tillage system and also created the Zone-Builder subsoiler.