For many no-tillers, this was a long winter filled with cold temperatures and substantial snowfall — at least in the upper to central regions of the Midwest.

Just because you are no-tilling, it doesn’t mean that you are doing the best you can for the soil structure of the land that you farm, Sjoerd Duiker says.

The first impulse of many growers may be to plow under CRP ground when converting it back into cropland.

Jim Koepke would be the first to tell you that he doesn’t consider himself a no-tiller. “There’s plenty of tillage activity going on in our soils, it’s just that the tillage is being done by earthworms instead of iron,” he says. “And those earthworms do a tremendous job.”

Black cutworms can pose a serious threat to a corn crop, and no-till farmers can be at higher risk than other growers because the life cycle of the black cutworm fits well with the agronomic practices of no-till.

Cold, wet soils challenge no-tillers everywhere, but they’re old hat for Joe Breker. He’s now in his 28th year of no-tilling in Havana, N.D., where the warmth doesn’t last long — it’s a 95-day maturity zone with just 2,200 to 2,300 growing degree days — and excess moisture is a problem year after year.