Zero till farmers recognize that, as a crop production system, zero tillage is not perfect. There have been, and continue to be, many challenges as they attempt to find the answers to the questions which continually come up. One of its strengths, however, is economics.

With the economics and crop production I'm seeing from zero till, it's just a matter of time before people are going to be looking across the fence and recognizing that it's the way they're going to have to go. It's a question of straight economics. At present, we have a lot of good conventional farmers who are still doing a good job ... but they're doing it with old dollars or old investments. As land starts to change hands and moves into a new generation, I believe the economics are going to drive people to zero till in the same way that economics drove people to continuous cropping.

Jim Nevin, Rapid City, Manitoba

When I came home to farm in 1982 with my dad, we were nearly half summer fallow. We had erosion, that was one of our main reasons for going to no-till. The other thing I saw was the amount of money we were spending on that fallow ground. Most of the time, in my opinion, it was dollars gone. Before we could take out the problems chemically, summer fallow had a purpose, but I don't feel it does anymore. I didn't take on another acre of land and I feel I doubled my farm.

John Raisler,Beach, North Dakota

While the business of farming demands that economics be a prime consideration, no-till farmers also point to very visible changes which they see around their farmland.

Healthy wildlife indicates healthy land - if you've got pheasants and deer and other wildlife around your land, that means you're doing something right. You're providing the habitat and in the process of providing that habitat and cover, you're creating a system to grow things in. I'm not a tree-hugger - but I am an environmentalist. I think all of us are concerned with taking care of the environment.

John Raisler, Beach, North Dakota

Zero tillage requires a systems approach to crop production. There is no single formula that works. As conditions vary from district to district - and even from farm to farm - no-till farmers have discovered that they must develop the system which fits their local conditions.

You could take a group of very experienced zero tillers, put them in a field and ask them 'are you satisfied with the seeding depth on this crop' .... you'll get half a dozen different answers. The answers will all be well thought out but you'll have different responses because each of them has been successful in slightly different conditions.

Bob McNabb, Minnedosa, Manitoba

Farming is like an art - a lot of farmers can do a lot of things in different ways and get the same end results.Jerry Presser, Turtle Lake, North Dakota

Finding what works best requires a continuing quest for the answers to the questions "how?" "why" and "what if".

Everyone approaches zero tillage a little differently. That's why it is important to share ideas. The Association workshops are like continuing education. You learn different chemical combinations and you learn ideas about equipment - about how to treat different soils, how to convert a field to no-till, about rotations....and then you get into what can we expect as earthworms move in, as the soil physics change, as the soil chemical composition changes - what can we expect when we see the microbial activity change?

Michael Faught, Absaraka, North Dakota

One of the greatest challenges faced by the early zero tillers was to develop seeding equipment that could place the seed properly in the ground. The 'new' seeding conditions which they faced demanded a system which could cut through the straw and trash, and provide uniform seed placement and safe fertilizer placement. With the equipment which is available today, the equipment decision is still a critical one for the no-till farmer.

I tried all kinds of drills and the first one didn't have banding capabilities. Well, I never had luck spreading fertilizer. If someone were buying a no-till drill without banding capability, I'd tell them to simply forget it - it's that important. It puts the fertilizer where the crop needs it, you're not fertilizing all the weeds - you're placing the fertilizer where the roots can grow into it.

Jerry Presser, Turtle Lake , North Dakota

From the beginning, it has been an accepted fact that zero tillage means the use of herbicides to replace the tillage. In particular, glyphosate made no-till farming possible. It must be borne in mind that the age old conflict between crops and weeds continues. In recent years, we've seen the development of herbicide resistance in weeds. While conventional farmers might look to more tillage, many zero tillers are using more diverse rotations and considering new herbicide approaches.

Certainly all of us have had to change our views about weed control because of the resistance problem. Now we are doing things we wouldn't have considered just a few years ago. For example, I've been using a surface applied pre-emergence herbicide which I hadn't thought of using before. Even though I know they aren't going to work 100%, I still rationalize it by saying that's better than having a resistance problem.

Jim McCutcheon, Homewood, Manitoba

Willingness to alter patterns has become a 'trade-mark' for zero-tillers. Some foresee that there may be a greater need to adapt in the future.

I guess I feel we could lose our herbicides. We could lose them for two reasons. Either they won't control the weeds properly anymore or we'll lose them for environmental reasons. So we would have to adapt and take a different approach. We'll demand that we have a good winter wheat or we may mix in more forages. Even if I'm not doing that right now, that doesn't mean that I can't or won't be in 5 years.

Robert Stevenson, Oak Lake, Manitoba

Along with weeds, successful no-till crop production requires attention to plant diseases. Crop rotations play an important role in breaking plant disease cycles - but other zero till attributes have a bearing as well.

I know we have disease on the old stubble that could infect the new crop but it doesn't seem to do it. One plant pathologist said it was because you don't get any splashing of water up from the ground - because the ground is covered with straw. The spores from those leaf diseases have to get mixed up with water and dirt and splashed onto leaves in order to sprout. If your ground is 100% covered by straw, the rain doesn't splash up - so we haven't had many outbreaks.

Bob Ekre, Beach, North Dakota

Crop rotation is just one of many tools used by no-till farmers in their production system. There are many reasons for including a wide range of crops in the rotation, but no matter what the added benefits are, the decision to include any crop in the rotation depends, in part, on markets.

Ultimately, farmers are only going to grow this diverse bunch of crops if it can be profitable. The farmers' job, with the help of other people, is to figure out how to make them profitable - how to grow them. Just the fact that someone is willing to buy lentils or some other crop - that's not the driving force. Take peas, for example, I don't think we've got the big acres of peas now because all of a sudden a market developed. I think there was always a market there for a protein crop and people wanted to grow peas as a rotation.

Garth Butcher, Birtle, Manitoba

Many thought that zero till was a system which would be unable to find a place in a more diversified, livestock operation. However, the inclusion of legume forages in rotations creates new opportunities. For some no-tillers, the forage crop simply represents another cash crop - one with a ready market among neighbouring livestock producers. Others have diversified their operations into livestock in various ways to take advantage of their own forage production. The livestock operation can benefit as well from supplementing rations with chaff collected at harvest time.

Feeding 140 cows over winter takes a lot of hay and straw. Of course, baling straw removes excess residue but the biggest benefit is chaff collection. The cows licked up the barley and lentil chaff like it was crushed grain - the wheat chaff they didn't like as much. Apparently, ammoniating will improve the palatability and the nutrient level. We'll be doing some research.

Stan Rampton, Oak Lake, Manitoba

Adopting a zero till system depends upon a willingness to change and adapt. This is made easier by the fact that there is no single set of guidelines to follow in order to be a successful zero tiller.

Zero till changed the rule - there weren't any rules any more. Today I see people doing things you once would have said 'you can't do that'. I think we have to take a different look at the resources we have available. I think we desperately need a good valuable winter crop whether it's winter wheat, or fall rye or winter canola. We'll continue to learn more about herbicide use, fertilizer placement - 10 years from now we won't recognize what we're doing. I look back 10 years and while we had the same technology, our yields were lower - 10 years from now, even with similar technology, we'll be at some different point. Robert Stevenson, Oak Lake, Manitoba

There are many questions which still need answers. Zero tillage still faces many challenges, but it is clear from the successes already achieved, that the answers can be found. Positive answers can be adopted - negative ones will stimulate more inquiries. However, it is certain they'll be addressed as they emerge, for we believe it is important to advance the art of no-till.