Since moving to Minnesota from Kansas nearly 6 years ago, I have been known to question the conventional wisdom. I grant that I grew up and farmed in an area where we did everything possible to save soil moisture. We terraced the land to try and keep as much water from running off our fields as possible. Our tillage implement of choice was called a “stubble mulch plow” that kept the maximum amount of soil residue on the surface. This shaded the soil to lower evaporation and helped to control wind and water erosion.

Today in that part of the country, you will rarely see a “stubble mulch plow” being used in the fields. Rather you will see large sprayers and planters with heavy coulters or “trash whippers.” No-till farming has revolutionized crop production on the High Plains. Grain producers are able to farm more acres with less machinery, labor, fuel and time. Corn and soybeans are able to be grown, where they had to be irrigated to produce a crop 20 years ago.

My father-in-law farms in North Central Iowa and he has successfully used no-till practices for the last 20 years, with outstanding results. So, when I moved to Minnesota, I asked the question: “why aren’t no-till practices being used?” I looked up the Minnesota statistics on no-till acres and found that only 10-12% of the acres were planted using these practices. When I would ask this question as I travelled around and visited with grain producers, I would get this blank stare that indicated I must be insane. Then the answer would be, “no-till will not work in Minnesota…it has to be ‘black’…the soil is too cold in the spring.” The last few years, I have asked that question less often. Yet, the subject kept gnawing at my curiosity.

I conducted a literature review to see what research has been conducted on no-till practices in the Midwest and specifically the Upper Midwest. The Corn & Soybean Digest has some great articles on this subject. The experts say that tillage has three purposes in the Upper Midwest. They are to warm up the soil, dry the soil for earlier planting and to make a better rooting and seed-placement zone. University of Minnesota regional Extension educator, Jodi DeJong-Hughes is quoted as saying, “tillage is to undo the compaction from the previous tillage…tillage begets more tillage.”

Research conducted at Iowa State University’s Mahdj Al-Kaisi, Extention soil management specialist suggests that using no-till saves $25-30/acre in corn, and $18-20/acre for soybeans in input cost of production compared to conventional tillage. He is quoted, “These savings result from reducing field-operation passes from eight passes in conventional tillage per growing season to five per year with no-till in corn production.” University of Minnesota-Morris research spanning four years pegs strip-till savings at $32/year over moldboard and deep ripping, says De Jong- Hughes. The strip-till trials found an average of 12 yield advantage of strip-till trials over full-width tillage.

Tony Vyn, Purdue University agronomist, says that conventional tillage is not essential for high corn yields. He has conducted research on no-till corn for 33 years. He states, “Your tillage system has less consequence for high yields than hybrid selection, optimum plant density and fertility levels.” “Strip-till truly is the system of choice for continuous corn,” says Vyn. “Even in continuous corn when no-till yields are somewhat lower, strip-till usually yields equal to chisel plowing while providing superior erosion protection.”

Extension Engineer Paul Jasa, University of Nebraska-Lincoln has studied continuous no-till corn production for over 30 years. Jasa says, “Don’t focus on making the spring planting conditions warmer and drier, but focus on making the summer growing conditions cooler and wetter. Cool, wet spring soils may slow growth some early in the season, but it’s your best friend in the heat of June, July and August.”

I interviewed a no-till producer in Wisconsin and he said, “It took me 3-4 years before my land recovered from tillage. I had to give it time to heal…now my yields are better than they were before, when I burned up all that fuel and wore out my equipment…a farmer shouldn’t switch all at once…just try it with a field and see what happens.” I am sure that I have not convinced many of you that these will become the best practices in the Upper Midwest. Yet in this era of high volatility, the challenge will be to find methods to capture a grain angle.