Les Colsch has been trying no-till for the last three years. He has tried corn into beans and corn into sod. Les said that he had such a good stand in the sandy ground he had, that had he known how good it would do he would have started doing no-till a long time ago.

He has a John Deere planter with closing wheels and coulters. He does not fertilize with his planter. He broadcasts his P&K with an air system truck. He also surface applies manure.

Les does soil sampling every three years. The soils on his ground is mostly sand and bottom ridge ground.

One thing that worked well for him was no-tilling into the sand because it helps with moisture control. He gets great coverage using the standard closing wheels and doing no-till the soil doesn’t dry out like doing conventional tillage.

One thing that didn’t work well for him was no-tilling on the ridges this year. It didn’t cover well and it needs to be a dry spring. He also thought he would need different closing wheels to make this work better.

Les selects certain hybrids so they will work better in his ground that he has. He started doing no-till as part of the CSP program through the NRCS office. If you would like more information on Les’ farm, please feel free to contact him at (563)544-4393.