No-Tilling in Heavy Soil

By: Raylene Nickel

For corn and soybean grower Tyler Zimmerman, who grew up farming in the Red River Valley, stopping soil erosion on his farm of 2,800 acres near Leonard, North Dakota, was one of the main reasons he wanted to switch to no-till. Over the years, he’d seen too many “black clouds of soil” billowing off tilled fields in high winds.

Stopping soil erosion also was a key motivator behind Tim Hansberger’s switch to 100% no-till in 2019. “Trying to eliminate soil erosion has been one of my main goals,” says Hansberger, who grows corn, soybeans, and cover crops on 1,200 acres in southern Minnesota near Worthington. “On windy days in the spring and winter, we used to have dust clouds over our farm, and surface water would run off and end up in a lake 15 miles away.”