No-till, some-till, minimum-till, scratch-and-plant, "emergency" tillage--pick your terminology. They all describe farming methods that acknowledge soil disturbance should be a minimized side effect, not a goal. But these aptly named variations on the theme of no-till also prove that an absolute practice won't fit every field.

Long-time no-tiller Alex Starke keeps a line of tillage implements around "just in case." No-till veteran Ralph Windmann says if someone showed him the economics of tillage would pencil out, he'd turn over the soil in his long-term no-till fields. Brian Flatt won't be hemmed in by no-till purist measures.

Each of these producers considers himself devoted to no-till philosophy. Yet, none is afraid to break from the philosophy if a particular field calls for it. In the sense that cutting severe ruts with a combine could break a particular field's no-till track record at any time, this pragmatic approach to no-till has always been around. Now, as a couple decades of no-till experience mounts, the pragmatic approach expands. No-till has become "individualized conservation-till."

No-till goes mainstream
The no-till revolution started in earnest during the 1980s, blossomed in the 90s and by now is commonplace enough that as a choice of farming practice, it is no big news. Improved no-till equipment and fine-tuned herbicides have fueled no-till's progress.

In fact, a survey ending in November 2000 showed that total U.S. acres planted without tillage has grown to 51 million acres. Of course, Midwest states that grow corn and soybeans lead the way. With other conservation tillage practices like ridge-till and mulch-till, the total acreage receiving some type of conservation tillage grows to about 110 million acres.

Fringe benefits
Like many who joined the ranks of no-till, Starke, who farms just south of Higginsville, Mo., had more than one reason to put away the disk. In fact, what first drew him to no-till is a common denominator among many Midwestern farmers--the need to cut labor from the operation.

Starke says there are economies of scale involved in no-till. With just his father, J.W., and Starke operating the farm, the less-time/more-ground equation afforded by one-pass planting was a tempting method to put seed in the ground.

But for all the labor shaving and time savings, Starke finds the fringe benefits of no-till have him hooked. In this case, no-till's fringe benefits are synonymous with its core principles--building soil structure and preventing erosion.

Starke said that on the hills of their Lafayette County farm, no-till has gone a long way in building soil structure. In more than a decade of no-till farming, Starke has seen improvement in drainage and, though it has taken time, more mellow soils. The increased tilth is brought on by more stable soil aggregates from organic matter accumulating in the upper layers of soil--the basis for more soil pores and better exchange of air and water in the plant root zone.

Transition time
On his Audrain County farm, Windmann has seen the same thing. Windmann, who farms with his wife Tracy, also splits his time between teaching Ag Machinery Diesel at the Mexico Area Vocational and Technical Center and being an Adult Young Farmers advisor.

After 14 years of no-tilling, Windmann has formulated a timetable for the soil to mellow and no-till to be a more rewarding effort.

"It looks like you've got to give no-till 5 years," he said. "The first year it works good. The second year, it's OK, but the ground seems harder. The third year, the ground is harder than a brickbat. The fourth is like the second and by the fifth, you begin to see the rewards. It gets better from there."

Windmann figures the short term of no-till, before the soil structure is stabilized, leaves residue and wetter soil conditions that can lend to compaction from heavy no-till equipment. He says there is a transition time for the soil to improve and a learning curve for the operator. Depending on particular soil conditions, Windmann believes the switch to no-till can bring with it a slight dip in yield.

Conditions, not calendar
Windmann and Starke agree that tillage probably won't go away. For his part, Starke no-tills both hill and bottom ground. While he's managed to avoid any deep harvest ruts on the hills, he sometimes resorts to tillage equipment to "clean up" harvest tracking in the more poorly drained bottom ground.

To reduce compaction in spring, Starke likes to plant according to ground conditions, not the calendar. That can make for planting corn as early as late March.

"You pay for your mistakes a little more with no-till than in conventional tillage," he said. "If you rush things you might pack that soil, and heavy drills do a good job of general compaction--the kind of thing that might take a couple of years to reverse," said Starke.

Thus, planting according to soil conditions might mean early planting--or getting to the field late.

Windmann said that waiting for the right soil conditions means his planter often is idle for 4 or 5 days while his conventional-till neighbors are in the field.

"Those few days can be important to profitability," he said. "It's tough to stand by and watch. But my philosophy is that I shouldn't be out with a no-till planter if I couldn't be pulling a disk."

Sometimes it's too difficult to watch others plant. But Windmann and Starke both stress that patience is one of the most important components of no-till.

"On the couple of occasions that emotions have gotten the better of me," said Windmann, "I've seen the results of sidewall and general compaction--poorer yields."

Starke uses a 13-wave coulter and trash wheels on his planter. He started with just trash wheels, adding the coulters later to reduce wear on the opening discs. He believes the coulters cut a better seed trench when conditions are dry.

Windmann uses 13-wave coulters with no row cleaners. Recently, he's considered introducing light tillage via a field cultivator prior to corn planting.

"No-till does make it hard to plant corn sometimes," said Windmann. "I've kicked around the idea of making a "light scratch" pass for corn-something to let the air in to help the soil warm up and dry a little. I guess I'm not the purest no-till purist you'll find."

Schools of thought
Of course, any grower who has researched no-till finds that there are distinct schools of thought. There are purists and then there is everyone else. And yet that piercing light from the purist no-tiller's torch casts shadows in shades of gray. It turns out there are as many approaches to the no-till philosophy as there are farms.

Agricultural engineer Bill Casady says he comes from the purist school when it comes to no-till. From his post at the University of Missouri, Casady sees variations of no-till play out in the countryside.

"There are enough individual situations that even purists have to admit it is OK to do some of the things we attribute to tillage or strip tillage," he said. "Using soil fluffing attachments, scratching the surface of the soil and moving field residue are things that happen with a no-till planter, anyway. After all, the planter is technically disturbing the soil and is a tillage machine--in a narrowly defined area."

Practical considerations
Spring 2001 marked a sure departure from no-till purism for Windmann. Wet, cold weather wiped out a field of soybeans. In a season when double-crop soybeans beat some of the first crop plantings, he pulled out the disk and worked 70 acres of his farm.

"It was the 11th hour," he said.

For Windmann, the distressing irony of the situation was that the field he tilled was the field he first converted to no-till some 14 years ago.

For consolation, he got to see the results of long-term no-till.

"I've never seen ground work that beautifully," said Windmann. "It crumbled easily. In my tillage days I couldn't ever pull through with one pass of the disk and have the soil ready to plant."

At harvest time, Windmann's observations about improved soil structure and increased drainage through no-till were well illustrated--the field he disked stayed soft longer after autumn rains while the no-till field beside it stayed firm enough to support a combine.

Tillage by default
Brian Flatt farms with his family near Centralia, Mo. Flatt represents the generation of younger farmers who have grown up with no-till. His outlook is born from seeing the benefits of the system, using it as a tool--a means to an end of improving fields and yield; a method to save labor and time.

But Flatt says their farm isn't hemmed in by the "don't-move-any-soil" purist measure.

In fact, theirs is the rare no-till farm that incorporates fall tillage. In the fall, the Flatts apply anhydrous with a 12-row applicator that uses coulters to cut through trash and finishes with aggressive closers. The result is a zone of tillage that remains in a slight ridge.

Flatt said that winter rains and thawing and freezing work the ridge down by spring and leave a mellow, quick-warming strip in which to plant corn.

They simply line up their 12-row planter to match the applicator pass.

Flatt has been pleased with this practice and believes its benefits include more timely corn planting. However, he offers a warning.

"This spring it didn't work as well as we wanted it to. Because of the dry winter, the ridges hadn't mellowed and shrunk as much as usual. When spring rains came, some of them channeled water and caused some washing."

For the long term
Like Windmann and Starke, Flatt sees long-term benefits to no-till. He has noticed improved soil structure and says that long-term fields are solid enough that harvest tracking can be corrected with a light pass from the field cultivator.

Flatt sees no-till as a long-term proposition--something that works but isn't urgent.

"We're not afraid to work fields that don't have a no-till history. And if a wet season shows up and we needed to till, we'd sacrifice fields that are newer to no-till rather than long-time no-till fields."