Tim Gieseke - MN
Last year, Minnesota had a very dry fall and [nearly] everyone tilled deep and the landscape was scattered with soil boulders as hard as bowling balls. The snow and rain eventually melted them, but it looked like a person may not even be able to plant in some fields. Since the fall and winter was warm, they also burned up as much carbon in the soil as one could expect. In and May when we recieved ~ 12" of rain, you could tell which fields were managed how by the size of the ponds by the runoff. With the dry summer after May, we have been living off that foot of May rain. I concluded that despite this hot, dry summer, the soil apparently needs a bit more "hell" in it. Because the corn looked a lot better in those fields that farmers didn't till the "hell" out of it...
4:02 PM Sep 7th

GL Walker - Cherokee, IA
OR, plant cover crops for soil health! Tillage in a drought?!? A diverse cover crop mix will begin to biologically resolve compaction, improve water infiltration and retention, increase beneficial bacteria and fungi in your soil, and prepare your field for anything the next growing season has in store. :)
3:14 PM Sep 7th