No-Till Farmer Podcast

No-Till Living Legend Ray McCormick from Vincennes, Ind., is No-Till Farmer’s 2024 Conservation Ag Operator Fellow. The annual fellowship spotlights the real-time decision-making McCormick uses to make no-till — or never till as he calls it — work on his farm. In this episode of the No-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment, McCormick talks about how he first got involved with restoring farmland into wetlands, seeding cover crops with the combine, his planting philosophies and more.

For this latest episode in this series of Influencers & Innovators podcasts, brought to you by Source by Sound Agriculture, Roy Pfaltzgraff of Haxtum, Colorado, talks about his 30-year assessment of the costs of tillage, no-tillage with fallow and no-till with a soil health focus. Cropping 2,200 dryland acres in an area that receives less than 14 inches of average rainfall yearly, Roy shares his insights from a presentation at the thirty-second annual National No-Tillage Conference on how he’s changed the operation’s focus over the past 8 years while raising 12 or more different crops each year in this extremely dry aera of northeastern Colorado.

At the 2024 Commodity Classic show in Houston, extreme weather conditions were on many no-tillers’ minds as they thought ahead to planting season. In this episode of the No-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment, managing editor Michaela Paukner talks to 9 growers about their expectations and preparations for the 2024 planting season.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators Podcast, brought to you by SOURCE® from Sound Agriculture, listen to No-Till Innovator and CEO at Rodale Institute, Jeff Moyer as he tells the story of how he helped to create and popularize the first roller crimper, which would completely change the game for no-tillers, cover croppers and regenerative ag growers around the world.

In this episode of the No-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment, technology editor Noah Newman talks to Ron Digman, a no-tiller from Mount Hope, Wis. about the planter technology investments and management it took to raise 96-bushel per acre soybeans, a yield that earned him second place in the 2022 Wisconsin Soybean Association Yield Contest.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators Podcast, brought to you by SOURCE® from Sound Agriculture, listen to the Dave Brandt Memorial lecture from this year’s 32nd Annual National No-Tillage Conference.

Bill Northey, the former Iowa agriculture secretary and USDA leader, passed away in early February, leaving behind a legacy of farm policy leadership and influence on conservation agriculture. In this episode, brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment, we’re sharing Northey’s keynote presentation from the 2015 National Strip-Tillage Conference about applying science and technology to improve conservation tillage practices.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators Podcast, brought to you by SOURCE® from Sound Agriculture, President of Lessiter Media, Mike Lessiter, talks about the history of the National No-Tillage Conference, what it’s grown to today, and his thoughts on the future of no-till and the conference. We also hear from Hans Kok, an independent conservation consultant, as he talks about his time at 25 of the 32 conferences, which have been held in January since 1993.

In this episode of the No-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment, contributing editor Dan Crummett talks to Bill Chism, chair of the Weed Science Society of America, about how evolving EPA regulations to protect endangered species will affect your herbicide use in the coming months.

In this episode, we count down the most popular episodes of 2023, starting with a rapid-fire panel discussion between Alan Berry, Ross Bishop and Stan Miller, three farmers who spoke on a No-Till Innovator panel at the National No-Tillage Conference.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators Podcast, brought to you by SOURCE® from Sound Agriculture, editor Frank Lessiter chats with Nebraska cropping systems specialist, Bob Klein. The conversation covers no-till history as well as the concept of Eco-Fallow —the process of controlling weeds after wheat harvest with herbicides, while minimizing soil disturbance as much as possible and conserving soil moisture.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators Podcast, brought to you by SOURCE® from Sound Agriculture, listen to a compilation of audio clips from the 3 most popular episodes of the podcast released in 2023 featuring stories about no-till legal battles, small acreage no-till, cover crops and much more.

“The USDA’s Partnership for Climate-Smart Commodities program represents an investment of over $3.1 billion into U.S. agriculture,” writes Todd Janzen, ag attorney at Janzen Schroeder Ag Law, “but what I am most interested in is USDA’s collection of production data from U.S. farms and fields through Climate-Smart Commodities grants.” In this episode of the No-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment, Janzen explains what no-tillers need to know about the USDA’s data collection through these grants, potential legal liabilities for artificial intelligence in agriculture and more.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators Podcast, brought to you by SOURCE® from Sound Agriculture, University of Nebraska extension engineer Paul Jasa discusses the benefits and economics of no-till, how cover crops and grazing fit with no-till and what he has learned from his 45+ years of no-till research.

Potomac, Ill., no-tiller Bryan Severs likes to keep things as simple as possible — and that’s helped him break the 100-bushel barrier with non-GMO soybeans. In this episode of the No-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment, technology editor Noah Newman talks to the third-generation farmer about the keys to his high-yielding no-till soybeans.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators Podcast, brought to you by SOURCE® from Sound Agriculture, editor Frank Lessiter has chosen to pick up a recent episode of the Soil Sense Podcast, created by Farmers for Soil Health. The episode features Nancy Kavazanjian, who along with her husband Charlie Hammer, farms in the south-central part of Wisconsin where they grow corn, soybeans and wheat in rotation. Over the years they have been innovators in no-till and strip till farming and were the first in their area to regularly use cover crops.

In this episode of the No-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment, Purdue weed science professor Bryan Young talks about strategies to fight herbicide-resistant weeds in no-till, including some of the most promising precision technologies to consider adding to your toolbox.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators Podcast, brought to you by SOURCE® from Sound Agriculture, editor Frank Lessiter sits down with Guy Swanson, a 50+ year no-till veteran. The two of them discuss deep band fertilizer applications, the creation of the no-till Yielder Drill known as “Old Yeller,” and the early no-till movement that Swanson and his father sparked in the Palouse.

Ahead of his capstone presentation at the 2024 National No-Tillage Conference, 2023 Conservation Ag Operator Fellow Loran Steinlage of West Union, Iowa, has been putting the focus on farmer-to-farmer learning through a series of free monthly webinars. In this episode of the No-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment, Steinlage shares a harvest update, takes your cover crop questions and much more.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators Podcast, brought to you by SOURCE® from Sound Agriculture, Steve Hunt, president of Case IH dealership H&R Agri-Power (winner of the 2023 No-Till Innovator Award for business category), talks about his dealership’s involvement with Harry Young Jr. and the first-ever commercial no-till plots on U.S. soil.

In this episode of the No-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment, we talk with Dylan Vaca, the brand and marketing manager for the DeLong Company’s Grown Climate Smart program. He talks about how you can be rewarded for no-till and sustainable farming practices — even if you’ve been doing them for decades.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators Podcast, brought to you by SOURCE® from Sound Agriculture, Thomas Gent, a 4th-generation farmer, shares the details of the no-till system on his family farm in Tydd St. Giles, England. Gent’s father and grandfather made the decision to switch to no-till 16 years ago, and for him, it’s the only way he’s ever known how to farm.

In this rapid-fire panel discussion from the 2023 National No-Tillage Conference, 3 No-Till Innovators share their top profit-building no-till soybean ideas. In this episode of the No-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment, Alan Berry, Ross Bishop and Stan Miller discuss soybean row spacing, planting green, cover crops and more to help you implement money-making changes to your operation.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators Podcast, brought to you by SOURCE® from Sound Agriculture, Joel Reddick, a young Kentucky no-tiller, talks about his family’s operation and how they’ve been successful with 100% no-till for 5+ years. The Reddicks also have cover crops on 100% of their acres and have been referred to by some as the “pioneers of planting green.”

Ryan Gibbs, an Iowa no-tiller and the owner of Gibbsfield Ag, makes and sells vermicompost extract to improve the health of his no-till soils. The liquid product is crucial to his goal of growing 250 bushel corn without commercial fertilizers on no-till ground. In part 2 of this interview with Gibbs, brought to you by SOURCE®️ by Sound Agriculture, he talks about the logistics of making and spraying his compost extract, plus how he uses sap analysis and soil testing to make nutrient management decisions.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators Podcast, brought to you by Martin-Till, Indiana organic no-tiller Rick Clark explains why he thinks that sometimes, it’s best to think outside of the box in the world of no-till.

Ryan Gibbs, an Iowa no-tiller and the owner of Gibbsfield Ag, makes and sells vermicompost extract to improve the health of his no-till soils. The liquid product is applied to his corn fields and has allowed him to cut back on nitrogen. In today’s episode of the podcast, brought to you by SOURCE®️ by Sound Agriculture, Gibbs introduces his method of making vermicompost extract, its benefits and how he applies the product at field scale.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators Podcast, brought to you by Martin-Till, assistant editor Mackane Vogel sits down with Don Reicosky, retired USDA soil scientist, to talk about what truly defines conservation agriculture systems and what key pillars are necessary to be able to accurately describe a farm as one that is practicing conservation agriculture.

In today’s episode of the podcast, brought to you by SOURCE®️ by Sound Agriculture, we’re bringing you Calmer’s 2023 National No-Tillage Conference presentation about top tips for setting your combine for a stellar soybean harvest.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators Podcast, brought to you by Martin-Till, Frank Lessiter sits down with Penn State University soil scientist and agronomist Sjoerd Duiker to talk about what no-tillers should be doing to make their cropping systems even better.

North Carolina no-tiller Russell Hedrick made history with his 2022 corn harvest, raising a dryland no-till corn crop that topped 459 bushels per acre. His willingness to challenge conventional wisdom, try on-farm experiments and use regenerative agriculture practices all contribute to his success.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators Podcast, brought to you by Martin-Till, listen to No-Till Innovator Ray Archuleta’s presentation from the 2023 National No-Tillage Conference, a powerful talk that earned him a standing ovation from hundreds of no-tillers. In this session, Archuleta explores the true power of biologicals in the soil and discusseshow regenerative agriculture can become more widespread.

In today’s episode of the podcast, brought to you by SOURCE®️ by Sound Agriculture, contributing editor Dan Crummett talks with Michael Kaiser and Britt Fossum from the University of Nebraska Lincoln about biochar and the university’s biochar, which currently make up one of the largest in-field biochar studies in the U.S.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators Podcast, brought to you by Martin-Till, Editor Frank Lessiter hosts a panel discussion with six individuals who have attended every National No-Tillage Conference since it began in 1993: Allen Berry, Allan Brooks, R.D. Wolheter, Bryan Van Holten, Randall Reeder and the late Scott Davidson. Davidson passed away in April of 2021 but attended all 29 National No-Tillage Conferences held during his lifetime.

Join No-Till Farmer on a road trip across southern Wisconsin in this week’s episode of the podcast, brought to you by SOURCE®️ by Sound Agriculture. Michaela Paukner, managing editor at No-Till Farmer, and Jim Stute, a no-tiller and independent research agronomist, traveled from Stute’s East Troy, Wis., farm to a meeting in the southwestern part of Wisconsin near the border with Illinois. Ride along as they talk about herbicide-resistant weeds, Stute’s Wisconsin operation and research trials, the history of phosphorus use in agriculture, and more.

In this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators podcast, brought to you by Martin-Till, editor Frank Lessiter sits down with Mitchell Hora, a 7th generation farmer from Washington County, Iowa, and current CEO and founder of Continuum Ag, a soil health data intelligence company.

In today’s episode of No-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by The Andersons, Greg Butler, the long-time research and development manager for the South Australian No-Till Farmers Association, and David McGavin, farmer and founder of the Precision Seeding Solutions dealership, talk about how the more than 85% of farmers in the region manage to successfully no-till in dryland conditions.

In this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators podcast, brought to you by Crop Vitality and Thio-Sul, editor Frank Lessiter sits down with Grant Troop, a no-tiller and a long-time soil health specialist and consultant in Oxford, Pa.

This episode of the podcast, brought to you by The Andersons, No-Till Farmer president Mike Lessiter talks with McCormick from the hospital just a few days after the accident about what happened, his memories of the late Dave Brandt, the deadly dust storm crash in Illinois in May and more.

In this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators podcast, brought to you by Crop Vitality and Thio-Sul, editor Frank Lessiter sits down with Monte Bottens, a northwest Illinois no-tiller and the current CEO of Ag Solutions Network. Bottens talks about all things soil health and regenerative agriculture, including cover crops, ideal row widths, biologicals and his cattle operation.

No-Till Legend Dave Brandt of Carroll, Ohio, showed the farming community the tremendous value of cover crops and regenerative practices in improving soil health. Brandt passed away unexpectedly in late May of 2023, leaving behind a legacy of challenging status quo farming methods and providing mentorship to countless farmers. Today’s episode of the podcast, brought to you by The Andersons, features audio from a presentation Brandt gave at the National No-Tillage Conference, teaching no-tillers how to find success with interseeding cover crops.

In this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators podcast, brought to you by Crop Vitality and Thio-Sul, listen back to a popular episode of the No-Till Farmer podcast from our archives featuring Ohio State University Extension ag engineer John Fulton.

In today’s episode of the podcast, brought to you by The Andersons, Ryan Schroeter with National Land Realty talks about 2023 farmland value trends and what needs to happen for no-till and other conservation practices to influence land valuation.

This episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators podcast, brought to you by Crop Vitality and Thio-Sul, is a departure from normal no-till history, but no less important. This episode details how a single no-tiller by the name of Percy Schmeiser fought an army of lawyers as agribusiness giant Monsanto accused the farmer of stealing its Roundup-Ready canola seed. Perhaps you’ve seen one of the movies on the subject, including the recent Percy vs. Goliath major motion picture that was released in 2020 and starred academy-award winner Christopher Walken.

Gregg Sauder has been at the forefront of no-till planter technology for decades — first as the founder of Precision Planting, which he later sold to Monsanto, and now as the founder of 360 Yield Center. In today’s episode of the podcast, brought to you by The Andersons, Gregg reviews the evolution of planter technology over his career and the important no-till planter lessons — and life lessons — he’s learned in the years since.

In this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators podcast, brought to you by Crop Vitality and Thio-Sul, listen back to one of the most popular episodes of the No-Till Farmer podcast from our archives featuring no-till innovator Marion Calmer.

Federal and state incentive programs for cover cropping can be hard to find and difficult to navigate. That’s why Maria Teresa Tancredi and Michaela Lubbers, researchers at the University of Georgia, created an online cover crop incentive tool to organize information about the programs and make it easier for no-tillers to be rewarded for adopting cover crops.

In this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators podcast, brought to you by Crop Vitality and Thio-Sul, North Dakota State University Extension soil specialist Dave Franzen shares his unconventional trajectory into the world of agriculture and why he thinks no-till is so critical for improving soil health.

In this episode of the podcast, brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment, contributing editor Dan Crummett talks with Mike Tweedy and Danielle Watts of Pattern Ag about the company’s soil testing process, predictions for the 2023 growing season and what ROI the company’s testing can provide for no-tillers.

In this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators podcast, brought to you by Source by Sound Agriculture, No-Till Legend and former Ohio State Extension ag engineer Randall Reeder talks about his secondary career portraying the old pop culture icon Will Rogers.

In this episode of the podcast, brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment, Jonathan Correa, owner of La Cosecha Tortilla Company in Madison, Wis., and No-Till Legend Dave Brandt from Carroll, Ohio, join Steinlage to talk about how they’ve built a mutually beneficial partnership that benefits the health of their communities in a variety of ways.

In this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators podcast, brought to you by Source by Sound Agriculture, listen to part 2 of Howard G. Buffett’s presentation on feeding the world with no-till from a previous National No-Tillage Conference.

No-Till Farmer’s 2023 Conservation Ag Operator Fellow Loran Steinlage of West Union, Iowa, and No-Till Legend Dave Brandt from Carroll, Ohio, have been thinking beyond yield for decades — focusing on soil health, doing more with less, and lately, producing high nutrient density crops that could be used as medicine in the future.

Under the guidance of 2022 No-Till Innovator Dan Forgey, Cronin Farms in Gettysburg, S.D., vastly diversified its rotation to include nearly a dozen crops — all with the goal of improving soil health. Cronin Farms is a 10,000-acre operation with 640 irrigated acres and over 8,000 acres of native prairie along the Missouri River. In 1993, Forgey and the Cronins transitioned the farm to no-till and established a rotational grazing system for their 850 head cow/calf operation. In this episode of the No-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment, managing editor Michaela Paukner talks with Forgey about the 10,000-acre South Dakota operation he manages, why crop diversification is so important and why he has a passion for soil.

In this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators podcast, brought to you by Source By Sound Agriculture, listen back to a presentation on feeding the world with no-till farming by Howard G. Buffett from the 2010 National No-Tillage Conference. A champion of no-till farming, Buffett manages a 1,500-acre family farm in central Illinois and operates a 400-acre farm in Nebraska. He also oversees multiple research farms in Arizona, Illinois and Nebraska totaling 9,500 acres.

In this episode of the podcast, brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment, hear from Loran Steinlage and Rolan, his son, about the crisis that became a pivotal day in Loran’s career and the reason why connection and mentorship are so important to his operation.

Greenfield Robotics’ vision for the future of weed control is a fleet of 10 robots, weighing 350 pounds each, that use spinning blades to chop weeds growing among broadacre row crops. In this episode of the No-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment, contributing editor Dan Crummett talks with Clint Brauer, the CEO of Greenfield Robotics, about Greenfield’s weeder robots, how the company plans to expand the robots’ capabilities beyond weeding and why Brauer wants to take the chemicals out of no-tilling.

In this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators podcast, brought to you by Source By Sound Agriculture, Frank Lessiter sits down with long-time southeastern Wisconsin no-tiller Bob Wildermuth and his wife, Anita.

In this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators podcast, brought to you by Source By Sound Agriculture, Frank Lessiter sits down with Fall Line Capital Director of Agronomy and no-tiller in Manitoba, Canada, Scott Day about no-tilling in the extreme climate of Canada’s prairies and why choosing a diverse crop program has been so successful on his no-till farm.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators podcast, brought to you by Source by Sound Agriculture, we’re replaying the very first episode of the “No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators” podcast that was posted on January 18 of 2019. In this episode, brought to you by SOURCE by Sound Agriculture, Lessiter Media President Mike Lessiter interviews his dad, Frank Lessiter, on the roots of no-till and conservation tillage farming.

As 2022 comes to a close, we’re revisiting some of the most-played episodes of the No-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment. Listen in as we count down the top five most-played episodes of 2022. 5. Finding No-Till Success in the Face of Adversity 4. Adapting No-Till In the Palouse With Russ Zenner 3. Barry Fisher, Soil Health, and the Future of Carbon 2. Soil Scientist and Educator Joel Gruver 1. Boosting Your Bottom Line with Humates & Mineral Nutrition

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators podcast, brought to you by SOURCE®️ by Sound Agriculture, No-Till Farmer Editor Frank Lassiter talks with Kelly Cheesewright about his 37 years of successful no-tilling and how it has now led to moving to organic no-till on nearly half of the over 2,000-acre operation that he farms with his son Keaton.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment, contributing editor Dan Crummett talks with Cully about Susterre’s system and what it means for the future of no-till.

No-Till Farmer editor Frank Lessiter talks with Moeller about the particulars of planting equipment, why high-speed might not be in the cards for no-till planters, what right-to-repair means for no-till and more. This week’s episode of the No-Till Farmers: Influencers & Innovators podcast is brought to you by Source by Sound Agriculture.

On this week’s episode of the No-Till Farmer Podcast, brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment, Associate Editor Noah Newman talks to Jared Kenney of Amherste, Neb. Kenney finished second in the National Corn Growers’ Association Annual Yield Contest for Irrigated No-Till in Nebraska.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators podcast, brought to you by SOURCE®️ by Sound Agriculture, No-Till Farmer editor Frank Lessiter talks with Moeller about the particulars of planting equipment, why high-speed might not be in the cards for no-till planters, what right-to-repair means for no-till and more.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment, we're joined by Kyle Schomers. Schomers picked his best 10 acres and hit it with maximum nutrients in order to prep the ground for entry into the National Corn Growers Assn. (NCGA) Annual Yield Contest.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators podcast, brought to you by SOURCE®️ by Sound Agriculture, No-Till Farmer editor Frank Lessiter talks with Nuffield scholar and Merlin, Ont., no-tiller Blake Vince about his heavy use of cover crops, dealing with suboptimal precipitation, and more.

Ron Ohlde farms more than 1,000 acres of no-till land near Palmer, Kan. He started working smarter, not harder with the advent of precision farming in the 1980s, and handheld GPS units. Today, he’s a champion, riding a 289.7 bushel per acre yield to first place for Kansas in the National Corn Growers’ Association’s Annual Yield Competition.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators podcast, brought to you by SOURCE®️ by Sound Agriculture, Ag consultant Joe Nester says phosphorus (P) is leaving soil. In this presentation from the National No-Tillage Conference, Nester covers how to measure and recover P, as well as the issues that arise when too much P shows up in the wrong place.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment, we're joined by Karl Dirks who farms about 1,000 acres of Pennsylvania ground near Mount Joy, Pa. He faced better-than-usual precipitation conditions and higher pest pressure to accomplish no-till success.

Randall Reeder and Frank Lessiter discuss ridge-tilling on this week’s episode of the “No-Till Influencers and Innovators” podcast. The method pushed weed seeds near the crops into valleys between the ridges, along with residue, where it would be quickly canopied over by the growing crops – usually corn – and help retain water.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by SOURCE by Sound Agriculture, we're joined by Steve Wilkens who farms about 1,000 acres of Wisconsin ground that his family has worked since the 1850’s. In 2021, Wilkens recorded a yield of 315.4 bushels per acre, enough to claim second place in the Wisconsin No-Till Non-Irrigated category for the National Corn Grower’s Association Corn Yield Contest.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators podcast, brought to you by Verdesian Life Sciences, features two members of commercial no-till’s founding family: John and Alex Young. Their presentation to the 2017 National No-Tillage Conference touches on just about everything, from the origins and rise of no-till farming to climate change, cover crops, and residue management.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by SOURCE by Sound Agriculture, we're joined by Rod Rejesus, who studies economics, land values and crop insurance for North Carolina State University. He and collaborators from other academic institutions authored and published a paper earlier this year showing increased land values corresponding with a 1% increase in no-till adoption at the county level.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators podcast, brought to you by Verdesian Life Sciences, features Missouri-based fertility expert Neal Kinsey. Kinsey’s discussion examines the findings of seven soil samples from various geographic regions, soil types and crop rotations.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by SOURCE by Sound Agriculture, Brad and Joel Reddick joined Cover Crop Strategies podcast host and editor Noah Newman to cover the basics of their operation, how they came to add on additional practices to no-tilling.

In this week’s “No-Till Influencers and Innovators” podcast, Frank Lessiter speaks with early strip-till adapter Dean Fehl about how he got started strip tilling, and his current role as a retiree helping his sons work the family farm, and more.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by SOURCE by Sound Agriculture, we caught up with Jim Leverich of Sparta, Wis., to ask him about some of the things he’s learned about no-till since he was first introduced to the practice back in the 1980s.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators podcast, brought to you by Verdesian Life Sciences, we take another look back at the early days of no-till in western Kentucky. However, this episode is different than most of the podcasts in this series as it features a former John Deere dealer and his memories of the rapid growth of no-till in the western Kentucky area.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by SOURCE by Sound Agriculture, we caught up with Steve Savage to chat with him about a couple of his recent articles. Stay tuned to hear him discuss the history of no-till farming, why the practice has been so important, and how it will play a role in the future of conservation. He’ll also share why he says using the term “synthetic nitrogen” is misleading, the inconvenient truth about the greenhouse gases associated with making compost, how small-scale, local Haber-Bosch nitrogen production could help reduce the reliance on foreign inputs and more.

This week’s edition of the No-Till Farmer: Influencers & Innovators podcast, we all thrill to no-till. Or maybe we’re all no-till tigers. Whatever you do, remember to farm ugly. These are a few of the slogans and gimmicks used by this week’s guest, Dick Foell during the early days of no-till farming in the early 1970s. Foell worked at Chevron to promote and develop a then little-known chemical by the name of paraquat, a herbicide that helped move no-tilling from a loose collection of bottom-line minded innovators to a national soil health movement.

For this installment of the No-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by SOURCE by Sound Agriculture, we visited Dakota Lakes and chatted with Sam Ireland about his plans for the operation, including long-term crop rotation trials, experiments the farm is conducting on dealing with seed weevil pressure in sunflowers, innovations in livestock feeding, closing the loop on the energy cycle and more.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators podcast, brought to you by Verdesian Life Sciences, we're joined by Blake Brown, director of the AgResearch and Education Center at Milan. The center, one of ten in Tennesee, shares a significant anniversary in the annals of No-Till history.

Parker Cohn works on more than just golf courses. The young soil services entrepreneur and operator of Performance Resources Management is an example of a company offering bespoke — that is, customized to individual fields and operations — fertility recommendations for agricultural and horticultural operations in California. Parker’s customer base and operations are out on the coast, where water pressure on the agriculture sector is tightening amid persistently drier conditions. If you’re a grower in Illinois or Iowa, plane fare is part of what you’d pay for to get Parker’s professional opinion.

This week’s edition of the No-Till Farmer: Influencers & Innovators podcast discusses the intersection of no-till and technology in Saskatchewan, Canada. The need for autonomy arose in Saskatchewan because of the shortage of available labor, says Norbert Beaujot. Farms — like his 3,000-acre no-till mixed crop and testing operation — were getting larger, but labor remained scarce. He formed Dot Technologies Corp, featuring remote controlled power units with variable attachments for seeding, spraying, rolling, or moving grain carts.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by Bio-Till Cover Crops, we followed up with the recently-retired manager of Dakota Lakes Research Farm, Dwayne Beck about his time at Dakota Lakes and how he came to develop some of his controversial beliefs.

This week’s edition of the No-Till Farmer: Influencers & Innovators podcast focuses on the early days of no-till in the keystone state. Joel Meyers is nearing retirement now, but for 20 years as the NRCS State Agronomist for Pennsylvania, he helped to advocate no-tillage for the gently rolling hills and steeper slopes in Northern Appalachia.

In this episode of the No-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by Bio-till Cover Crop Seed, Robert Paarlberg, associate at the sustainability science program at the Harvard Kennedy School, talks about the research that went into his book, his advice to commercial farmers and farm organizations about advocating for sustainability, what those groups need to do to combat the myths surrounding sustainable agriculture and more.

This week’s edition of the No-Till Farmer: Influencers & Innovators podcast is a continuation of the previous Influencers & Innovators podcast featuring NNTC presenter Dwayne Beck. Beck discusses the particulars of the discussion he started with the last episode: the particulars of crop rotation and using rotations to fight pests. Beck recently retired as the director of the Dakota Lakes Research Station in South Dakota.

Micronutrients and humates are critical to soil fertility and plant nutrition, but their effects aren’t widely understood. That’s where independent soil health specialist Jim Hoorman comes in.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators podcast, brought to you by The Andersons, we’re revisiting a presentation by no-till stalwart presenter Dwayne Beck. If you don’t know, Beck headed up the Dakota Lakes Research Station, retiring in February. He’s been a repeat presenter at the National No-Till Conference. If you don’t know, you’ll soon learn. Beck is a straight talker and a captivating speaker. He’s also fond of the odd off-color joke.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer Podcast, we’re headed to Cajun Country for a talk with fourth-generation farmer Justin Fusilier. Corn and soybean operations dominate most of our readership here at No-Till Farmer, according to our benchmark survey, but Justin stumbled onto something he thinks holds promise in Lousiana, where crops like rice and sugarcane are far more common.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators podcast, brought to you by The Andersons, we’re heading underground. We’re going deep under the soil surface to concentrate on one of the major benefits of no-tilling when it comes to improving soil health. Today’s agenda is worms: Earthworms, red worms, nightcrawlers, and other kinds of worms and the impact the have on no-tilled soils.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by Bio Till Cover Crop Seed, Aaron Locker, Vice President of sales for HELM Agro joins us to discuss what farmers can do if they can’t get the glyphosate supply they’re used to.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators podcast, brought to you by The Andersons, editor Frank Lessiter talks with entomologist Dr. Jonathan Lundgren about his motivations for making this move and how he hopes to remove barriers to the adoption of regenerative agriculture.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment, fifth-generation Arkansas farmer Adam Chappell, joins us to talk about how he got into no-till, what methods he employs, what he sees for the future, and more.

In this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers Innovators Podcast, brought to you by NewLeaf Symbiotics, we dug through our archives to find the speech Frank Lessiter presented during his 1973 testimonial before the House Agriculture Committee on the important role no-tillage was playing in American agriculture.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment, Himanshu Gupta, CEO and founder of Climate Ai, joins us to talk about how his company measures heat risk and drought risk and turns those into what he calls the planting risk index, a metric that can help growers make better operational decisions for their farms.