Let’s be honest, farming creates a risk that fertilizers and manures applied won’t always stay there. And when that happens we’re put in the spotlight, as you’ve seen with recent news reports about algal blooms contaminating popular waterways.

Is it time to begin to ‘rethink how we think’ about soil calcium, or do we just continue on with our old, conventional thinking that the soil has enough?

On our farm in northeast Nebraska, both corn and soybeans were planted in a timely manner — by May 10 — after a cold, dry and open winter and then a dry and cold spring.

Soil health seems to be on everyone’s mind these days. We read stories about it, agencies are funding research and education about the topic, experts are giving presentations, scientists are conducting experiments and agronomists and farmers are being trained on it.

Toughened corn stalks are the bane of raising high-yielding corn today.

Tillage is a bad word to most no-tillers, but farmers often differ in how they approach no-till.

Since no-till was first pioneered several decades ago, changes in equipment and practices have helped farmers get more consistent results from the practice.

There's no doubt most no-tillers are good stewards of the land and want to conserve it for themselves and future generations. To most farmers, that means conserving their soil base — and to others it means improving it.