When Bill Lehmkuhl started doing planter clinics in 1994, he says most growers spent more time managing their harvesting equipment than their planter.

For some time, Luke Linnenbringer felt like he was on a treadmill trying to farm profitably in a conventional-tillage system with degraded soils and stagnant yields. In fact, he was ready to stop cropping nearly a decade ago.

“No-Till is not a machine, not a crop and not residue. Instead, no-till is a combination of all the critical things you need to produce the best crop with the least cost and the most sustainability. That’s been our farm goal for the past quarter century.”

Joe Kern and his father, John, admit they’re still dealing with a learning curve. But through working with no-till practices they’re transforming their “clay pot” soils into acreage that recently produced up to 240-bushel corn and 80-bushel soybeans.