The Midwest is dry and experiencing drought problems, especially the Mississippi river with reduced barge traffic. Many no-tillers want to know what is the probability of a drought next year?

It was at the 2017 National No-Tillage Conference that Marion Calmer began to wonder if stratification was a problem on his no-till farm in Alpha, Ill.

A hotter atmosphere is causing rain to fall in harder bursts, pushing back planting seasons and drowning crops. At the same time as human-driven climate change is juicing precipitation, Corn Belt farming practices such as installing underground drainage tiles and leaving fields bare after harvest are changing how water moves across the landscape and into waterways.

John Deere has launched a new series of strip-till equipment available for order in February 2023. Tillage product manager Steve Sporrer gives us a first look at one of the new units in action.

No-till production, a type of conservation tillage in which farmers plant directly into remaining crop residue without tilling, has increased substantially for wheat and corn over the past two decades.

For over thirty years I managed farms in northwest and northcentral Iowa for absentee farm owners whom I worked closely with to make soil and water conservation an important part of our farm plans. I convinced my farm operators to stop moldboard plowing, move to chisel plows and eventually leave soybean stubble untilled in the fall.