If you’re Dick Foell, who extensively promoted no-till while working for Chevron and Zeneca in the 1970s and 1980s, you keep busy in many different ways. This includes doing beautiful duck carvings while still promoting no-till in a unique way.

Now 90 years old, Foell and his wife Chickie live in central California where they are still active volunteering with numerous groups.

Besides carving detailed duck decoys that you would never want to set out in a duck marsh and collecting miniature duck decoys, Foell is also promoting no-till to members of his local church. He does this with a 20-foot-long patch of no-till sweet corn in the church’s garden.

One of the beautiful duck decoys carved by long-time no-till promoter Dick Foell.

Besides promoting the use of Gramoxone in no-till over the years for the two firms which in later years became part of Syngenta, Foell was also instrumental in the start of the Conservation Technology Information Center in 1981.

He told me recently that he had finished reading more than 50 years of my editorials columns that have appeared in more than 600 issues of No-Till Farmer. (As others have also done, you can order our 871-page “Frankly Speaking” book here.)

Congratulations Dick on a great career. See more of all the good things we’ve said about Dick and Chickie over the years:

• Dick Foell: Nothing Too Crazy to Promote No-Till
• Walk Down Memory Lane With the Dynamic Dick Foell 
• 40-Year-Old Conservation Technology Information Center Gave Unified Voice for No-Till