KIOWA, Kan. — During the past 10 years, Bob Schrock switched his farm in South Central Kansas from a full tillage cattle grazing enterprise to a no-till, grain-only system while pioneering the successful introduction of a new crop, winter canola.

Ray Menke of Fort Madison, Iowa, says the benefits of 25 years of no-till helped him through this years extreme drought.

With both extremely wet and dry conditions happening in the same growing season, it is not a stretch to call 2011 a strange year in Manitoba, but it has helped prove the effectiveness of perennial and annual forage seed blends known as "polycrops", or cover crops, in dealing with extremes of weather.

Mark Pettijohn builds failure into his farming operation and expects some stinkers while experimenting with "green" and "unconventional" methods. Sometimes he hits it big, however, and a field busts loose with gorgeous bounty.

An option for getting an earlier establishment on fall seeded cover crops is to over-seed.