When he turned to no-till in the mid-1980s, Wayne Harrison estimates as much as half of the original topsoil on some of his fields was already gone.

In 1977, Rod Nelson had accumulated enough savings to pay down 348 acres of farmland near Chatfield in the rolling hill country of southeastern Minnesota.

A chance meeting with South African farmers during a trade show inspired Jeff Littrell and his company’s partners to design a planting system that simultaneously applies one dry and two liquid fertilizer products.

Ten years ago, when our operation was featured in No-Till Farmer, I told the editors that I would stay with no-tillage regardless of what happened.

My first experience with no-tilling resulted from bad weather and fortunate networking with innovators who set the pace away from tillage.

Shifting from conventional tillage to no-till often requires a lot of physical change in your operation. Just as importantly, adopting this new way of farming demands a strong dose of faith during a transition period that might take several years. I like to joke it’s the same kind of devotion it takes to make a good marriage work.

When I'm asked what the primary differences are between no-tilling in the Palouse region of Idaho and Washington versus the Midwest, the discussion starts with our steep slopes.

Looking back, it seems like we did everything we could to make sure no-till wouldn't work. But it fooled us.

I’m the third generation of the Hoff family to operate our farm near Boonville, Mo. Following an early example set by my dad, John Hoff, who first no-tilled in the early 1970s, I’ve spent the past several years fine-tuning our no-till program.

Twenty-five years ago, my father, Loren Stokes, and I milked and fed a 100-cow dairy herd and were also tilling about 300 acres of farmland. Needless to say, we were busy daylight to dark. We both decided we were working too hard.