As no-tillers we are definitely an oddity here in the highly productive San Luis Valley of Colorado. While we strive to keep our acres covered and undisturbed, the farmers surrounding us move masses of earth with every crop.

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

No one thing got us into no-till, but every year we find more reasons to stay with it. In the 1970s and early 1980s, our farm management included my father, Doyle, my Uncle Jerry and a cousin, Roy. They had given up the moldboard plow in the 1970s and had switched to a chisel plow system, but were still doing a lot of tillage.