Dugan Bad Warrior Ranch, Ziebach Co. , , SD. Photo Credit: Joe Dickie By Buz Kloot When I first met Joe Dickie , it didn’t take long to know we were going to get along. We’d barely begun working together when the playful jabs started — the kind of good-natured banter you fall into only with someone who is both a consummate professional and  someone who loves to keep things light. SD NRCS’s Collette Kessler threw us together years ago for soil health work in South Dakota, saying, “You two need to work with each other.”  She wasn’t wrong. Joe took over the cameras, the color, and the sound — all the things I used to fret over — while I focused on the science and the admin. Somewhere in those early trips down I-90, the partnership took root. And somewhere in those same miles, something else happened: the prairie stole my heart . Once you stand in that early light and listen — really listen — the prairie reveals itself: meadowlarks tuning up, cattle moving against the horizon, wind combing through the grass. What looks empty from the highway becomes a whole, living world when you’re standing inside it. Over the years, Growing Resilience  has been fortunate to share Joe’s talents with many South Dakota partners. So when the South Dakota Grassland Coalition  releases a new Amazing Grasslands  video — produced by Joe and his team — we recognize the signature touches immediately: the quiet dawn shots, the honest conversations, the way people relax into their own story when Joe is behind the lens. That’s why this month’s film, Behind the Lens , feels so special. It offers a window into how these superb artists , Joe, Mitch Kezar , and Charlie Dickie  spend their days documenting South Dakota ranch families — long drives, early alarms, unpredictable weather, and more motel coffee than anyone should drink twice. But the real story is how people open up around them. A rancher may start the morning a bit stiff, unsure about being filmed. Then Joe — with his disarming mix of curiosity and humor — asks a question, listens deeply, and suddenly the conversation shifts. Shoulders drop. A smile breaks. Within minutes, they’re talking about grazing decisions, family history, and the deep love they have for the land. By mid-morning, you’d swear they’ve known each other for years. What Joe and his team understand — and what South Dakota teaches all of us — is that story begins with relationship . With trust. With showing up on someone’s land and seeing not just grass and cattle, but the generations of care stitched into every acre. That is why South Dakota steals our hearts.Not only for its sweeping horizons, but for the people who rise each day determined to keep those horizons alive. This month’s Amazing Grasslands  release honors exactly that spirit — the open gates, the shared coffee, the humor, and the resilience that define ranch life here. 👉  Watch the September Amazing Grasslands short film on the SD NRCS YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4QqSidPY58 If this steals your heart even a little, you’re in good company. It happens every time. __________ Visit these “Growing Resilience Through Our Soils” information pages: 1. Podcast page for drought planning fact sheets, Q&As, news, podcasts, and more. 2. Video page to watch videos of other ranchers’ journeys toward improved rangeland/pasture. 3. Follow Growing Resilience on social media: Facebook - Growing Resilience Twitter - @GrowResilience_ Instagram - growingresilience.sd 4. Our homepage: www.growingresiliencesd.com

Dillon Co. SC Farmer, Sonny Price with our very own Barrett Self in a Freshly Picked Cotton Field By Buz Kloot When I think back to the first time I stood with Sonny Price on one of his Dillon County, SC fields in the fall of 2013, I remember the wind rustling in the just-harvested cotton plants, now dry, and Sonny looking out as if he were listening for something beneath the surface. He had just planted his first cover crop, Austrian winter peas as it turned out. Nothing dramatic—no perfect stand, no easy triumph. Just seed, soil, and a man with questions. In places like the South Carolina Coastal Plain, the land has a way of humbling anyone who believes they’ve mastered it. The sands run deep. The summers run hot. And the conventional wisdom, passed along like an article of faith, said: “ You can’t build organic matter here! ” Not really. Too sandy. Too hot. Too dry, people said. But Sonny never much cared for blanket statements. He cared about the land in front of him. In one of our interviews, he said: “We were told you can’t increase organic matter in the South… I couldn’t promote something I didn’t know anything about. I just needed questions answered.” At the time, we had just started a Conservation Innovation Grant (CIG), sponsored by the USDA-NRCS, with him and four other farmers in the southeastern coastal plain of South Carolina. What we wanted to see was whether cover crops could change soils over a three-year period in real farm ground. What Twelve Years Revealed Over the next decade, and past the three-year CIG, I watched Sonny and his brother, Tony, move through the kind of slow, considered experimentation that defines genuine stewardship. His rotations were already diverse: corn, wheat, double-cropped soybeans, cotton, and, where economics were good, winter peas, rapeseed, pink-eye peas. He introduced cool-season cover crops, then started working with warm-season cover crops behind the corn (harvested in August in the Southeast). He brought in chicken litter, then cut nitrogen back. He let go of phosphorus and potash altogether. And he parked the subsoiler—first by conviction, later by hard evidence from the field. When he quietly tried subsoiling a few spots again, “just to check,” the yields didn’t budge. The ground didn’t need it anymore. So the subsoiler stayed parked. By 2022, we had gathered eight years of soil tests, yield data, and input records to see what the land itself had to say. The full story is here: 👉  https://www.soilhealthlabs.com/projects/cotton-country-conservation What the data showed was what the fields had been whispering for years: Organic matter increased. Inputs fell: fuel, fertilizer, lime, and subsoiling. Yields held or improved. Costs dropped...significantly. And all of it happened on 6,300 acres of Coastal Plain ultisols, with sand, loamy sand, and sandy loam textures. This was not about a miracle product or a perfect recipe. It was about paying attention, year by year, and letting the land teach. For Those Who Still Say “It Won’t Work Here” Every region has its cautions—ours perhaps more than most. But Sonny’s experience stands as a quiet counterexample, revealing how much becomes possible when we work with the land rather than against what we think it is. Sonny didn’t begin with certainty . He began with curiosity , and the humility to test what he’d been told. Twelve years later, the land has given its answer. So if you’ve ever found yourself saying, “It won’t work here,”  I invite you to walk through Sonny’s case study. Not as a rebuttal, but as an opening. Because in Dillon County, on soil once written off as too fragile, too fickle, too Southern, Sonny found that it did  work. And if it worked here, we owe it to ourselves to wonder where else it might. __________ Visit these “Growing Resilience Through Our Soils” information pages: 1. Podcast page for drought planning fact sheets, Q&As, news, podcasts, and more. 2. Video page to watch videos of other ranchers’ journeys toward improved rangeland/pasture. 3. Follow Growing Resilience on social media: Facebook - Growing Resilience Twitter - @GrowResilience_ Instagram - growingresilience.sd 4. Our homepage: www.growingresiliencesd.com

Where soil is exposed, nature responds The Storm Was Coming The Atlas storm was rolling into South Dakota on October 5, 2013, the kind of storm that makes you aware of how small you are. Low clouds, raw wind, rain coming in sideways. It felt like the right weather to talk about weeds. Dwayne Beck had a way of choosing moments like that without ever saying he had. Sitting at Dakota Lakes Research Farm, he talked about weeds not as enemies, but as messengers. Indicators. Symptoms of something deeper going on in the system. Weeds Are Not a Chemistry Problem What struck me then—and has taken years to fully sink in—was how little patience Dwayne had for the idea that weeds are primarily a chemistry problem. “Herbicides don’t control weeds,” he said flatly. “They’re part of weed control.” The real work, he explained, happens long before a sprayer ever leaves the shed. Competition. Sanitation. Rotation. Those were the levers that mattered. Get a crop up fast. Keep the ground covered. Don’t let weeds go to seed. And for heaven’s sake, stop being predictable. Predictability, Dwayne insisted, is the one thing weeds—and insects—exploit better than we do. Competition Comes First If you do the same thing, at the same time, in the same sequence, year after year, nature doesn’t panic. She adapts. She waits. She selects. And then she wins. That’s where Palmer amaranth comes in. Or water hemp. Or ryegrass. Or whatever the weed of the decade happens to be. They aren’t invaders so much as opportunists, filling niches we’ve left wide open—bare soil, gaps in timing, systems simplified to the point where the outcome is all but guaranteed. Sanitation Is About Timing, Not Clean Fields Dwayne liked to say that Mother Nature isn’t malicious—but she’s relentless. She has, after all, been running research and development for a few billion years. Sanitation, as he used the word, didn’t mean sterile fields or perfection. It meant not letting weeds set seed. It meant early action, not heroic rescue. Most resistance problems, he argued, begin when we let weeds get established and then try to save the day with chemistry. Rotation Breaks Predictability This is where his thinking on technology often got misunderstood. At the time, I assumed he meant sprayers, monitors, precision ag—the visible tools. But what he was really cautioning against was our faith in stacked traits and genetic engineering as silver bullets. Crops engineered to resist weeds, insects, and disease all at once, as if complexity could be outsmarted by cleverness. Dwayne isn’t anti-technology. He just didn’t confuse technology with wisdom. He told a story—half joking, half deadly serious—about an old cowboy movie. One guy hauls off and punches another guy square in the gut. The second guy doesn’t even flinch. Just looks at him and says, “Oh…OK…, yeah, whatever!” That, Dwayne suggested, is how Mother Nature responds when we throw our latest innovation at her and expect applause. What the Research Eventually Confirmed Roundup resistance. Bt resistance. Trait workarounds. None of it surprises ecology. If anything, it confirms it. What Dwayne was saying in 2013 has since been borne out by the work at Dakota Lakes. Research led by Natalie Sturm has shown that diverse rotations—especially those that include small grains—do more for weed suppression and system resilience than no-till alone . Early-season crops disrupt weed life cycles and close niches that opportunists depend on, while longer, more intentional rotations reduce ecological predictability altogether. You can see this clearly in Beyond No-Till: Why Crop Rotations Matter More Than You Think and Long Rotations Leave Too Much on the Table—Really? Be Smarter Than a Weed The lesson Dwayne kept circling back to was simple, almost uncomfortable in its simplicity be smarter than a weed. Not stronger. Not louder. Smarter. That means diversity instead of monoculture. Rotation that breaks both sequence and timing. Crops that compete. Cover crops that fill niches. Systems that wobble less because they are built on relationships rather than recipes. Standing there as the storm settled in, it was clear Dwayne wasn’t offering a fix. He was offering a way of seeing. Weeds weren’t the problem . They were the feedback . And if we slow down long enough to listen, they tell us exactly what needs to change. Insights informed by 2013 conversations and 2025 Dakota Lakes rotation research. __________ Visit these “Growing Resilience Through Our Soils” information pages: 1. Podcast page for drought planning fact sheets, Q&As, news, podcasts, and more. 2. Video page to watch videos of other ranchers’ journeys toward improved rangeland/pasture. 3. Follow Growing Resilience on social media: Facebook - Growing Resilience Twitter - @GrowResilience_ Instagram - growingresilience.sd 4. Our homepage: www.growingresiliencesd.com

Weeds: Disturbance, Succession, and Opportunity A single plant can be seen as a problem, a signal, or a resource—depending on context, management, and interpretation. What Do We Mean When We Say “Weed”? A recent post sparked a wide-ranging conversation about weeds, with comments covering nearly the entire spectrum of thought. Some described weeds as indicators of soil problems. Others saw them as inevitable competitors that must be controlled. Still others pointed out that what we call a weed in one context can be valuable forage—or even a lifeline—in another. What stood out wasn’t disagreement so much as how much meaning gets packed into the word “weed.”  Before we talk about management—herbicides, tillage, grazing, or rotation—it’s worth stepping back and asking a more basic question: What do we actually mean when we say “weed”?   “A Plant Out of Place”: Useful, but Incomplete A common definition is that a weed is a plant out of place . While this phrase is often associated with modern chemical agriculture, the idea itself goes back much further—at least to the early 1700s. English agronomist Jethro Tull (seriously, that was his name), writing long before herbicides existed, framed weeds primarily as competitors . In his view, weeds were plants that interfered with crop growth by competing for space, light, and nutrients. The species mattered less than the fact that they were growing where they weren’t wanted. That framing still resonates today. One commenter summed up decades of experience bluntly: “Been using chemicals for 70 years and still have weeds.”  Another responded just as plainly: “We’ve been cultivating for over 120 years and still have weeds—spray them.” Both reflect a long-standing agricultural truth: weeds persist, and control has always been part of farming. But defining weeds only as “plants out of place” strips away context . It tells us what we don’t want—but not why  that plant showed up in the first place. Disturbance, Succession, and Opportunity Several commenters pushed the conversation in a different direction, suggesting that weeds tend to show up where soils are compacted, biologically depleted, or otherwise stressed. One encouraged people to dig and smell the soil beneath certain weeds or under cow pats, noting differences in structure and biological activity. This aligns closely with what I learned several years ago in a course with Dr. Elaine Ingham . She challenged the “plant out of place” definition because it ignores ecology—especially succession . Many plants we call weeds are early successional species . They are adapted to disturbed environments and tend to establish quickly, grow fast, produce large numbers of seeds, and form few mycorrhizal relationships. They are often the only  plants capable of moving in when soil has been disturbed to the point that much of the soil food web has been lost—when fungi, protozoa, nematodes, arthropods, and earthworms have been reduced or eliminated by repeated tillage and chemistry, leaving behind mostly small, opportunistic bacteria. In that context, weeds aren’t mysterious. They’re responding to opportunity . In my part of the world, Palmer amaranth  is a classic example. It thrives where disturbance creates open niches. That doesn’t make it a villain—it makes it a specialist. Scale Still Matters One of the more pointed exchanges in the comments wasn’t really about weeds at all—it was about scale . One person argued that soil under a weed couldn’t possibly be different from soil inches away where grass was growing. Another insisted the differences were obvious if you were willing to look closely. Both perspectives contain truth. Soils are heterogeneous, even in fields that look uniform. At the same time, not every weed represents a precise soil diagnosis at the square-inch scale. Long-term research helps here. At places like Dakota Lakes Research Farm , weeds aren’t treated as moral failures or perfect indicators. They’re understood as plants responding to opportunity , shaped by rotation, disturbance, timing, competition, and history over years—not just one season. Animals Change the Conversation Several commenters brought animals into the discussion, and rightly so. Livestock fundamentally alter how we should think about weeds. Manure and urine recycle nutrients. Hooves create disturbance—but also seed-soil contact. Grazing changes competition. And perhaps most importantly, animals redefine value . We’ve seen this clearly in our visits with producers like the Hamilton brothers , where plants such as kochia —often viewed strictly as weeds in row-crop systems—become highly nutritious forage in integrated livestock systems. The same applies to Palmer amaranth. In many cases, cattle will readily graze it and may even prefer it over certain grasses at particular growth stages. As one commenter put it, “Animals eat weeds. It’s the salad to their life of lettuce.” That perspective doesn’t deny weed challenges in cropping systems. But it reminds us that context matters . A “weed” in one system may be a resource in another. Indicators, Hyperaccumulators, and Shortcuts Several commenters noted that many plants we call weeds are hyperaccumulators —species that are exceptionally good at scavenging and recycling nutrients. There’s real truth in that observation. Plants like lambs quarters, pigweeds, kochia, thistles, and plantain are often dense in minerals, which helps explain both their aggressive growth and, in many cases, their value as forage. But there’s also a risk in stopping the analysis there. If we conclude only that weeds are recycling nutrients, it’s tempting to jump straight to a corrective input—adding micronutrients to suppress the symptom. Sometimes that works in the short term. But when the underlying causes remain unaddressed—soil structure, biological function, disturbance, lack of living roots, or weak competition—we can become dependent on increasingly complex nutrient packages without improving the resilience of the system itself. The same pattern shows up in weed control more broadly. Repeated herbicide use, especially when paired with tillage, disturbs soil both chemically and physically. When those disturbances occur year after year, often with the same mode of action in the same rotation, they tend to reinforce the very conditions early successional plants are best adapted to exploit : open niches, simplified biology, and reduced competition. One commenter joked about “herbicide deficiencies,” but the humor points to something real. Simplified systems—whether simplified biologically, chemically, or mechanically—invite pressure. Weeds respond not to intent, but to opportunity. And opportunity is shaped by the system we build over time. Competition, Diversity, and Durable Systems Some of the most grounded comments came from people describing integrated systems—small grains, under sown clover, better rotations, livestock, and competition doing the heavy lifting. One summed it up simply: “Competition is #1.” Long-term research supports that view. Herbicides work. The real question is how well they hold up on their own over time . Systems built around diversity, living roots, rotation, livestock, and timing tend to limit weed opportunity in more durable ways. Weeds don’t disappear—but they often become fewer, weaker, or less consequential. Where This Leaves Us Weeds are often indicators, always competitors, sometimes valuable forage—and quite often all three at once. What this conversation really exposes is not who is right or wrong, but how differently we can interpret the same thing. Two people can look at the same plant in the same field and come to very different conclusions—one seeing a problem to be controlled, another seeing a signal, a resource, or a response. The data may be the same, but the meaning we assign to it is shaped by experience, training, and context. That difference in interpretation showed up clearly in the comments. And it matters, because how we see  weeds shapes how we manage them. We can keep reaching for quick fixes—another product, another pass—or we can step back and ask harder management questions about rotation, competition, disturbance, biology, livestock, and timing. That kind of management takes more thought and more effort. There’s no getting around that. But over time, it is usually less expensive and far more durable than simply treating symptoms. The cost of ignoring weeds as part of a system—and focusing only on control—is long-term land degradation and the steady march of resistance. If we want different outcomes, we have to design systems that make weeds less relevant, not just temporarily suppressed. That work is harder up front—but it’s the only approach that holds up over time. Recommended Reading & Resources For those who want to dig deeper, the following resources are accessible, farmer-friendly, and grounded in research: Manage Weeds on Your Farm: A Guide to Ecological Strategies Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education (SARE) Free PDF: https://www.sare.org/wp-content/uploads/Manage-Weeds-on-Your-Farm.pdf Cornell CALS – Weed Science & Ecological Management Practical weed ecology, species profiles, and integrated management https://cals.cornell.edu/weed-science Fundamentals of Weed Science  – Robert Zimdahl A foundational text on weed biology, ecology, and competition Preview/reference: https://archive.org/details/fundamentalsofwe0000zimd  (available on line, some sites as low as $16) __________ Visit these “Growing Resilience Through Our Soils” information pages: 1. Podcast page for drought planning fact sheets, Q&As, news, podcasts, and more. 2. Video page to watch videos of other ranchers’ journeys toward improved rangeland/pasture. 3. Follow Growing Resilience on social media: Facebook - Growing Resilience Twitter - @GrowResilience_ Instagram - growingresilience.sd 4. Our homepage: www.growingresiliencesd.com

Spanish goat browsing native blackbrush shrub in dry rangeland ecosystem This Friday, Joe Dickie and I will drive west from Denver, across South Park, over Trout Creek Pass, and down into the valley the locals call Salida. We are going back to a ranch. Not just any ranch — but the one where a young man named Fred Provenza once flood-irrigated hay by hand, moved cattle on horseback to 11,000 feet, and learned to know the range long before he learned to write a scientific paper. Today, Dr. Fred Provenza is a Professor Emeritus at Utah State University. He is the author of Nourishment, and co-author of The Art of Shepherding and Hoofprints on the Land. His research has helped reshape how we think about livestock nutrition, plant diversity, and the hidden intelligence of animals. But before the science — there was Henry. Henry DeLuca never finished grade school. He did not speak of phytochemicals or adaptive grazing systems. He spoke of seasons. Of water. Of wind. Of where the cattle would likely drift when turned onto a new pasture. The herd did not move as one indistinguishable mass. It spread across the mountain in extended family groups. You had to know the canyons. Know the benches. Know where to look. Henry knew. Fred learned there that animals are individuals. That landscapes hold memory. That health — whether of land or livestock — is born of relationship. Years later, research would confirm what that ranch already knew: that animals balance nutrients when given diverse forage; that they learn from their mothers; that plant diversity matters; that grazing done with attention can nourish land as much as land nourishes animals. But none of that knowledge floats free of place. It began on that mountain. The ranch is no longer whole. What was once one working place is now divided. A third sold. Houses built where cattle once grazed. Fence lines marking not just property but change. It is not just this ranch. Across the West — across rural America — mid-sized farms and ranches have thinned. Some consolidated. Some subdivided. Some simply faded. The middle hollowed out. Henry used to say there was never much money in ranching. That has not changed. What has changed is the pressure — land values, debt, fragmentation, distance between those who live on land and those who consume what it produces. When land fragments, something else fragments with it. Memory. Knowledge. Belonging. Today we speak of regenerative agriculture as if it were a technique — something to be implemented, optimized, scaled. Standing where cattle once moved by horseback, you begin to suspect it is something quieter. You cannot love what you do not know intimately. Fred said that recently. It stayed with me. On that ranch, irrigation was done by hand. Cattle were moved by people who knew them. Grazing systems were designed with plant health in mind, though no one used that phrase. There was rest and recovery. There was attention. There was presence. There was intimacy. Modern livestock nutrition research now confirms what lived experience suggested: animals given diverse plant communities can regulate their own intake, self-medicate through plant compounds, and adapt culturally to landscapes. Soil, plants, animals, and people form a nested set of relationships — each shaping the other. But you do not learn that first in a lab. You learn it by watching cattle disappear over a ridge and knowing where they will reappear. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Joe has been talking about filming wind in the trees. He referenced a documentary where history was told not through archival footage but through the sound of prairie grass. You do not need to show the past if you can let the place speak. Fred remembers September on that mountain. Elk bugling. Bulls gathering harems. Cattle spreading across alpine benches. The long descent before winter. We will not recreate those scenes. But we will stand where they happened. Fred is 75 now. He still skis. He still reflects. When he talks about that ranch, there is less of the professor and more of the boy. The mountains have a way of stripping away titles. There is something about returning to a place that formed you. Something that bypasses argument and goes straight to the chest. We do not go to extract content. We go to listen. To see how livestock nutrition connects to plant diversity. How plant diversity connects to soil. How soil connects to community. How community connects to meaning. We will walk the ranch. We may drive up the mountain. We may sit inside the old house and talk. It will unfold as it should. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you would like to revisit earlier conversations with Fred Provenza before we share what comes next, you can listen here: · Tap Into the Hidden Wisdom of Livestock to Restore Your Land https://www.growingresiliencesd.com/podcasts/episode/1b03b2a9/71-tap-into-the-hidden-wisdom-of-livestock-to-restore-your-land-with-renowned-ecologist-fred-provenza · Fred Provenza’s Top Tips for Unlocking Livestock and Land Potential https://www.growingresiliencesd.com/podcasts/episode/2a6231c1/ecologist-fred-provenzas-top-tips-for-unlocking-livestock-and-land-potential · Reimagining Agriculture: Rethinking Our Relationship with Nature and the Land https://www.growingresiliencesd.com/podcasts/episode/e3298d4b/reimagining-agriculture-dr-fred-provenza-on-rethinking-our-relationship-with-nature-and-the-land We will share reels from the visit in the coming days. For now, we head toward the mountains. __________ Visit these “Growing Resilience Through Our Soils” information pages: 1. Podcast page for drought planning fact sheets, Q&As, news, podcasts, and more. 2. Video page to watch videos of other ranchers’ journeys toward improved rangeland/pasture. 3. Follow Growing Resilience on social media: Facebook - Growing Resilience Twitter - @GrowResilience_ Instagram - growingresilience.sd 4. Our homepage: www.growingresiliencesd.com

Jesse Hall showing Joe Dickie Soils that were once in Wet Spots By Buz Kloot Back in July, 2016, Joe Dickie and I were standing on one of Jesse Hall’s fields in eastern Kingsbury County, trading the usual insults — he was picking on my hat, and I was picking on his camera angles — Jesse cut through the noise with a line that stopped us both: “We tried fixing wet spots with tillage for years. It never worked.” If you’ve ever fought those stubborn low areas — the ones that stay soggy no matter how many times you chisel, disk, or rotary hoe them — you know the feeling. The conventional wisdom says: “Open it up. Dry it out. Work it black.” But Jesse’s story doesn’t follow the old script. For decades, he and his dad did exactly what most of us were taught. They plowed every low spot, field-cultivated in the spring, and hoped for a miracle. It never came. The wet spots stayed wet. The crop drowned. And the weeds loved every minute of it. Then Jesse added something that, on paper, shouldn’t sound rebellious — but kind of is: a small grain. When he shifted to a three-way rotation with oats, his infiltration rates increased, his soil structure changed, and — almost unbelievably — most of those long-troublesome wet spots began to disappear, not from horsepower, but from biology. Meanwhile, Joe and I exchanged that familiar look — the one we’ve shared with several South Dakota producers this year — because once again someone was demonstrating a truth that runs against conventional wisdom: You don’t fix water problems with tillage; you fix them with biology. Jesse and his friend Jim added the next layer: livestock integration. Ten heifers. Five goats. A handful of polywire. And the kind of neighborly skepticism that turns into bragging rights once the grass comes back thicker. The goats — God bless them — "slicked up" everything the cattle didn’t want, including bull thistles stripped clean to a stick. Jesse laughed, telling that story. The man loves data, but he also loves a good thistle-eating goat. And here’s the real call to action Jesse wanted other farmers to hear: “Don’t be afraid to try something new. But if you experiment, do it right — and start small.” You don’t need to switch the whole farm to no-till next spring. You don’t need to buy a herd of cattle. You don’t even need to own livestock — your neighbor might be glad to run theirs on your cover crop. But you do need to take one field, add one small grain, plant one cover crop, and give the biology a chance to work. The worst that happens? You learn something. The best that happens? The wet spots finally tell the truth — and they start to go away. So the real question is: If tillage fixed wet spots, why are they still there? Maybe it’s time — field by field, season by season — to see what biology can do that iron can’t. __________ Visit these “Growing Resilience Through Our Soils” information pages: 1. Podcast page for drought planning fact sheets, Q&As, news, podcasts, and more. 2. Video page to watch videos of other ranchers’ journeys toward improved rangeland/pasture. 3. Follow Growing Resilience on social media: Facebook - Growing Resilience Twitter - @GrowResilience_ Instagram - growingresilience.sd 4. Our homepage: www.growingresiliencesd.com

Jeff Hemenway, former Soil Health Conservationist, pointing out Roots in the Subsoil at 80” in a No-till, Cover-Cropped Field in Brookings, SD When a commenter wrote on one of our recent videos Dwayne Beck, no-till , he put it bluntly: “Without tillage water won’t penetrate. I rented 400 acres that was zero till for decades and it was like a concrete block.” That comment — echoed by others in our threads — hits at one of the most common criticisms of no-till. If the soil is hard, if water isn’t soaking in, surely tillage is the fix? It’s a reasonable assumption. But is it backed by the evidence? To answer that, I want to take you back to a visit I made with Dr. Tom Schumacher, retired soil scientist from South Dakota State University. Tom was one of the first people I met in South Dakota after starting my work on soil health, and I still remember standing beside his large rainfall simulators — the kind used for the Universal Soil Loss Equation — as he explained how he tested infiltration after different tillage treatments. Four Years After CRP — Three Systems, Big Differences Schumacher’s experiments compared land that had been in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), then managed for four years under three systems: Moldboard plow Chisel plow No-till Using time-domain reflectometry (TDR) probes, he tracked soil moisture at 10 cm (4 in) and 40 cm (16 in) during simulated rain events. The results were striking: The moldboard plow plots saw rapid runoff, with little moisture reaching 40 cm. Chisel plow plots performed better, but still lagged. No-till plots allowed deeper moisture movement, retained structure, and reduced runoff losses . Those findings were consistent with a body of work Schumacher and colleagues published through the 1990s on post-CRP management and tillage impacts on infiltration and erosion (Lindstrom et al., 1994; Lindstrom et al., 1998; Schumacher et al., 1995). Why No-Till Sometimes Fails at Infiltration If that’s the case, why do some producers — like the commenter — find that water won’t penetrate after years of no-till? Research suggests several reasons: Legacy compaction — Historic tillage pans or livestock traffic can persist for decades if not addressed with rotation, rooting depth, and biological activity (Kladivko, 2001). Low residue or cover crop use — Without a protective cover, raindrops can seal the surface even in no-till fields. Soil type and rainfall patterns — Fine-textured soils in arid or sub-humid regions may form crusts under certain conditions. Management plateau — No-till alone is not a silver bullet; gains accelerate when combined with diversity, living roots, and minimal disturbance (Basche & DeLonge, 2019). Peer-Reviewed Evidence: The Midwest Picture Multiple Midwestern and Plains studies reinforce Schumacher’s findings when no-till is part of a broader system: Kladivko (2001) found that continuous no-till in Indiana improved macroporosity and infiltration rates compared to conventional tillage, particularly when rotations and cover crops were used. Huang et al. (2012) reported higher steady-state infiltration rates in long-term no-till than tilled systems across multiple sites in the U.S. Basche & DeLonge (2019) synthesized data from 89 studies, concluding that cover crops (often paired with no-till) increased infiltration by a median of 35%. Pittelkow et al. (2015) cautioned that short-term no-till transitions may show neutral or negative infiltration benefits, underscoring the need for multi-year commitment. When Tillage “Helps” — and at What Cost There’s no denying that tillage can temporarily improve infiltration by breaking surface crusts and loosening compacted layers. But the effect is short-lived. Without protective cover, the newly disturbed surface can seal again after a few heavy rains — often within the same season (Lindstrom et al., 1994). Worse, repeated tillage accelerates organic matter loss, reduces aggregate stability, and increases erosion risk. In South Dakota’s climate, that soil is unlikely to come back in a farmer’s lifetime. Matching Management to the Ecosystem Back in 2013, I interviewed Dr. Dwayne Beck at Dakota Lakes Research Farm as the Atlas storm rolled in. His view still resonates: “No-till is just a tool to match the ecosystem. As soon as you do tillage, you can’t do that anymore. Cover crops and rotations are what you can do to build on that.” That’s the point Schumacher’s infiltration work makes so clearly — no-till works best when paired with diversity, residue cover, and living roots. Without them, it’s just one wrench in the toolbox. Bottom Line So, does no-till seal the soil? In poorly managed systems, yes — but that’s a management problem, not an inevitable outcome. The weight of the evidence from South Dakota and beyond shows that when integrated into a diverse, soil-covering, disturbance-minimizing system, no-till improves infiltration and helps keep both water and soil where they belong. We’ll dig deeper into the literature on soil-water dynamics in our next post. In the meantime, you can watch Dr. Schumacher explain his rainfall simulator work here (start at 0:37) . References Lindstrom, M. J., Schumacher, T. E., & Blecha, M. L. (1994). Management considerations for returning CRP lands to crop production. J. Soil Water Conserv. , 49(5), 420–425. Lindstrom, M. J., Schumacher, T. E., Cogo, N. P., & Blecha, M. L. (1998). Tillage effects on water runoff and soil erosion after sod. J. Soil Water Conserv. , 53(1), 59–63. Schumacher, T. E., Lindstrom, M. J., Blecha, M. L., Cogo, N. P., Clay, D. E., & Bleakley, B. (1995). Soil management after CRP contracts expire. In Clean Water Clean Environment 21st Century Conference Proceedings . Kladivko, E. J. (2001). Tillage systems and soil ecology. Soil Tillage Res. , 61(1–2), 61–76. Huang, M., et al. (2012). Infiltration and runoff under different tillage systems. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. , 76(6), 2094–2104. Basche, A. D., & DeLonge, M. S. (2019). Comparing infiltration rates in soils managed with cover crops: A meta-analysis. J. Soil Water Conserv. , 74(6), 653–664. Pittelkow, C. M., et al. (2015). Productivity limits and potentials of the principles of conservation agriculture. Nature , 517, 365–368. ____________________________________________________________________ Visit these “Growing Resilience Through Our Soils” information pages: 1. Podcast page  for drought planning fact sheets, Q&As, news, podcasts, and more. 2. Video page  to watch videos of other ranchers’ journeys toward improved rangeland/pasture. 3. Follow Growing Resilience on social media: Facebook - Growing Resilience   Twitter - @GrowResilience_   Instagram - growingresilience.sd   4. Our homepage: www.growingresiliencesd.com

As a response to several requests for more peer-reviewed material on the economics of no-till (NT) vs. conventional tillage (CT), I went digging into the usual suspects — input costs, yield comparisons, and long-term trials. That’s when I stumbled on research from South Dakota State University’s Beresford Research Farm that made me realize: I had a bias . In an earlier blog , we cited a meta-analysis showing no-till yields averaging 5.7% lower  overall compared to conventional tillage [1]. Like many, I assumed this applied across the board, including soybeans. To my surprise (and delight), I was wrong. The Surprising Soybean Advantage At SDSU’s Beresford farm, Pete Sexton and colleagues tracked no-till vs. conventional tillage over 27 years . In the corn–soybean rotation, conventional tillage corn out-yielded no-till corn by 6.1 bu/ac  — right in line with national averages. But here’s where things got interesting: Soybeans yielded 1.8 bu/ac higher under no-till. Even more striking, when the team expanded into three- and four-year rotations  — adding small grains like wheat or oats — no-till corn not only caught up but edged ahead by 1.3 to 1.8 bu/ac , and soybeans gained 1.4 to 2.5 bu/ac  [2]. Natalie Sturm’s 2022 master’s thesis at Dakota Lakes Research Farm reinforces the pattern: when rotations included small grains and legumes, no-till yields improved alongside soil health [3]. It’s Not Just No-Till — It’s How You No-Till So why does the “no-till, no yield” slogan persist? Corn-Centered Thinking In the Midwest, corn is king. It’s the economic driver, the benchmark. But soybeans — less sensitive to cool soils and quicker to benefit from improved water retention and structure — often outperform under no-till. They just get left out of the story. Short-Term Focus No-till is not a plug-and-play swap. It’s a system change. Early years can show uneven corn performance, but over time, synergistic practices like longer rotations and cover crops help unlock the full potential. Framing in Research & Media Much of agronomic research — and almost all the headlines — focus on single-year, single-crop results , not long-term, system-wide gains. As Natalie Sturm put it in her thesis: “It’s not just no-till — it’s how you no-till.” Do Real Farmers see this, or is this just Theoretical? Jesse Hall, a no-till farmer in Kingsbury County, offers a clear example. By adding small grains to his rotation, Jesse saw soybean yields improve by 3 to 5 bu/ac  across his farm average. His success didn’t come from adding more inputs — it came from diversifying the system . The Big Question: What Will It Cost? Naturally, the next question farmers ask is: “If longer rotations improve no-till performance, what will it cost me?” It’s a fair question — and one we’ll dig into next. Early data from long-term trials at Brookings, South Dakota, suggest that diverse no-till rotations — even when they shift acres away from corn — can actually increase net income , thanks to lower input costs, reduced chemical use, and improved weed control. In short, stepping beyond the corn–soybean cycle may not be a cost — it may be one of the smartest profitability strategies on the farm . References 1.     Pittelkow, C. M., Liang, X., Linquist, B. A., et al. (2015). Productivity limits and potentials of the principles of conservation agriculture. Nature , 517, 365–368. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13809 2.     Sexton, P., Rops, B., Stevens, R., Williamson, G., & Sweeter, C. (2018). Long-Term Rotation and Tillage Study: Observations on Corn and Soybean Yields – 2018 Season. In Southeast South Dakota Experiment Farm Annual Progress Report: 2018  (pp. 21–24). https://openprairie.sdstate.edu/agexperimentsta_rsp/279 3.     Sturm, N. (2022). It’s Not Just No-Till: Crop Rotations are Key to Improving Soil Quality and Grain Yields at Dakota Lakes Research Farm (Master’s thesis). South Dakota State University. https://openprairie.sdstate.edu/etd2/366   ______________________________________________ ______________________ Visit these “Growing Resilience Through Our Soils” information pages: 1. Podcast page for drought planning fact sheets, Q&As, news, podcasts, and more. 2. Video page to watch videos of other ranchers’ journeys toward improved rangeland/pasture. 3. Follow Growing Resilience on social media: Facebook - Growing Resilience Twitter - @GrowResilience_ Instagram - growingresilience.sd 4. Our homepage: www.growingresiliencesd.com

Windblown soil collected in a roadside ditch in southeast South Dakota and what remains is mostly sand—the finer, nutrient-rich particles have already been carried away. The Days That Don’t Seem to Matter There are days on the Plains—especially in dry spring conditions—when nothing seems to be happening. A pickup moves down a county road, the sky pale and steady, the wind just strong enough to lean into. Fifteen, maybe twenty miles an hour. Not enough to stop you. Not enough to make the news. Just enough, though, to begin moving soil from fields that have been opened up to it. It doesn’t announce itself. It doesn’t leave much behind that you can point to in the moment. But over time, it adds up. Because on days like that, the land is moving—whether we notice it or not. The Day We Do Remember We’ve seen what happens when the wind makes itself known. On May 12, 2022, a derecho swept across South Dakota, and in the middle of the afternoon the sky went dark—not dimmed but erased. Fields turned to dust, visibility dropped to zero, and people found themselves in situations that felt, in more than one account, like something out of the Dust Bowl. Dan Mehlhaf, District Conservationist with USDA-NRCS in Yankton, lived through it. “It reminded me of the Dust Bowl,” he said. It was the kind of day that leaves an impression, and rightly so. We wrote about it at the time because it felt worth remembering. But there’s a quieter side to that story—and it’s the part we tend to overlook. What We Don’t See When soil scientist Chris Coriel, National Erosion Specialist with USDA-NRCS in Fort Worth, Texas, was asked to look at that event, he examined not just the storm itself, but the conditions around it. What he found was unsettling. In the days leading up to the derecho, there were long stretches of steady wind—nothing dramatic, nothing that would make a person stop what they were doing. And yet, over those ordinary days, the total soil movement may well have exceeded what was lost during the storm itself. No darkness at midday. No headlines. Just a steady, almost invisible loss. Dan had seen that kind of thing firsthand even before the derecho. During a stretch of strong spring winds, he went out to look at a field that was blowing and found he couldn’t even step out of his truck. The soil in the air made it impossible to stand there for long. When he returned a few days later, the wind had settled, but the evidence had not. The ditch alongside the field was full—nearly 30 inches of soil that had come off that one piece of ground. And what remained in the field told an even clearer story. The soil had been a silty clay loam; the kind of ground producers rely on. What was left behind was mostly sand. The finer particles—the silts and clays that hold water, nutrients, and life—had lifted and gone. A soil test of what collected in that ditch showed high levels of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. By Dan’s estimate, it amounted to roughly $996 per acre in lost nutrients. Not over time. In a single stretch of wind. Two Fields, One Difference And yet, just across the road, there was another field. Same soil. Same crop history. Same wind. The difference was that after silage, that field had been planted to cereal rye. It stood green that spring, and it held. It did not blow. That contrast doesn’t settle every question, but it points to something fundamental. The wind responds to what’s in front of it—whether the soil is protected or exposed, anchored or loose. A Better Question Every year about this time, conversations around tillage and no-till surface again. People point to what they’ve seen, what they’ve tried, what has and hasn’t worked. The skepticism is understandable—no one farms in theory, and no one can afford to get it wrong. But both the research and the field observations suggest the question may not be as simple as choosing one system over another. A more useful question might be this: When, exactly, is the soil most vulnerable? Because erosion doesn’t happen evenly across a season. It concentrates in those windows when soil is disturbed and left exposed—before canopy, during dry periods, and under steady spring winds like the ones we’re seeing now. Even systems that look acceptable on average can have moments where the risk is far higher than we realize. That’s part of what Dan was getting at in our recent conversation. He noted that more strip-till rigs are showing up across the region, and most producers understand there’s a range within that practice. Some setups leave very little disturbance at the surface, while others leave more, depending on how they’re configured and run. It’s not about drawing lines between good and bad. But it does bring us back to a simple reality: the more the soil is disturbed and left exposed, the more vulnerable it becomes to the kind of steady winds that rarely get our attention. What the Wind Teaches This year, the conditions are lining up again. Southeast South Dakota is in a D3 drought in places, with broader areas still dry. Subsoil moisture is limited, and while the winds haven’t reached the intensity of 2022, they don’t need to in order to move soil. Which raises a question that goes beyond any one system or practice. If we know that soil—and the nutrients tied to it—can leave under these conditions, sometimes without us noticing, what are we doing to protect it in those moments when it is most exposed? I’ve spent enough time talking with farmers across the Plains to know this—most of us aren’t trying to do the wrong thing. But sometimes the land is showing us something we didn’t expect, and it’s worth paying attention. We remember the day the sky went dark. But the land changes just as surely on the days when nothing seems to be happening. Are you paying attention? __________ Visit these “Growing Resilience Through Our Soils” information pages: 1. Podcast page for drought planning fact sheets, Q&As, news, podcasts, and more. 2. Video page to watch videos of other ranchers’ journeys toward improved rangeland/pasture. 3. Follow Growing Resilience on social media: Facebook - Growing Resilience Twitter - @GrowResilience_ Instagram - growingresilience.sd 4. Our homepage: www.growingresiliencesd.com

James River Valley, South Dakota: Aerial comparison (2014–2022) When salinity shows up, the instinct is simple: draw a line around it and take it out of production. Seed it to grass. Fence it off. Manage it separately. In many cases, that approach makes sense. It addresses what we can see—the white crust, the poor crop performance, the obvious loss. But it doesn’t solve the problem. As NRCS Resource Conservationist Shane Jordan puts it: “You can box it out if you want—but it just keeps moving.” Salinity Is the Last Chapter We tend to treat salinity as the starting point—the issue to fix. But that’s not where it begins. “That’s not where it starts—that’s just where you see it.” Salinity is where the story becomes visible. Not where it begins. When water stops infiltrating effectively, it begins to move sideways across the landscape—or upward from below. As it moves, it carries dissolved salts with it. Over time, those salts accumulate near the surface. By the time we notice salinity, the system has already been out of balance for a while. Salinity is the last chapter. Treating the Symptom, Not the Cause When we isolate a saline patch, we’re responding to the expression—not the origin. The drivers are broader: Water moving across the landscape instead of into it Soil structure limiting infiltration Reduced plant uptake The accumulated effects of management over time In flatter landscapes, this becomes even more apparent. “The whole field is the slope.” There is no clean boundary between “problem area” and “healthy area.” They are connected through water. Why the Box Fails When we treat only the visible saline area: We may stabilize that spot temporarily We may reduce immediate losses But we leave the rest of the system unchanged Water still moves the same way.Infiltration is still limited.Evaporation still pulls moisture—and salts—upward. So the salts continue to migrate, often showing up just beyond the edges of the treated area. What looked like a solution becomes a moving boundary. A Different Way to See It If salinity is a water cycle issue, then the solution has to begin there. Not with the salt—but with the movement of water through the entire field. Instead of asking: “How do I fix that area?” We begin asking: “What is the water telling me about this landscape?” That shift changes everything. Rebuilding the System Producers who are making progress don’t necessarily focus on salinity directly. They focus on restoring function: Limiting disturbance Keeping the soil covered Maintaining a living root Increasing diversity In practice, that might mean longer rotations, less tillage to preserve pore continuity—or even easing off inputs long enough for something to grow and use water. As Shane puts it: “Sometimes the best thing you can do is just back off and let something grow.” None of these is a silver bullet. But together, they begin to restore the water cycle—and with it, the conditions that keep salinity in check. Working With the Whole There’s a natural inclination—especially under economic pressure—to focus on the most visible losses. But salinity doesn’t respect those boundaries. “Water doesn’t care about your boundaries.” It follows water.And water moves through the entire system. Which means long-term solutions require us to think—and manage—at that same scale. Not in boxes.But in systems. The Hard Part—and the Opportunity This approach asks more of us than a simple fix. It requires a shift in mindset. That shift doesn’t happen overnight. It comes through observation, experimentation, and a willingness to try something different—often on a small scale at first. But there’s encouragement in this: There are producers already doing this work. They are rebuilding systems that can withstand both wet and dry years. Not perfectly. Not instantly. But steadily. And in doing so, they are showing us something important: Salinity is not just a problem to manage. It’s a signal—pointing us back to something more fundamental: How well can our soil receive, hold, and use water?   __________ Visit these “Growing Resilience Through Our Soils” information pages: 1. Podcast page for drought planning fact sheets, Q&As, news, podcasts, and more. 2. Video page to watch videos of other ranchers’ journeys toward improved rangeland/pasture. 3. Follow Growing Resilience on social media: Facebook - Growing Resilience Twitter - @GrowResilience_ Instagram - growingresilience.sd 4. Our homepage: www.growingresiliencesd.com

soil-salinity-field-south-dakota I spent some time this week visiting with Shane Jordan, a resource conservationist with SD NRCS based out of Brookings, South Dakota. Shane has spent more than three decades working with producers across the northern Plains, and in 2025 he was recognized nationally with the Hugh Hammond Bennett Award —one of the highest honors in conservation planning. What struck me in our conversation wasn’t just his experience. It was the quiet urgency in how he described what he’s seeing right now. As he put it, "The main reason is it really hasn’t disappeared.”   He was talking about soil salinity. And if anything, the conditions of the past year may have quietly set the stage for it to expand. A Setup We’ve Seen Before in Saline Soils Last year, across parts of the northern Plains, what began as a dry start turned into something very different. By mid-May, conditions flipped, and in some areas more than 30 inches of rain fell. That kind of moisture doesn’t just grow crops—it raises water tables. And when water tables rise, salts begin to move through the soil profile . Now, as we enter a new season with exposed soil and the potential for dry, windy conditions, the process reverses direction: Water moves upward Evaporation increases Salts are left behind on the surface That white crust showing up in patches across a field? It’s not a new problem. It’s last year’s water, leaving the salts it carried behind. The Real Cause of Soil Salinity: A Broken Water Cycle It’s tempting to blame the weather alone—too much rain, not enough rain, a difficult growing season. But that misses the deeper issue. As Shane put it, “We have a broken water cycle.”   Soil salinity is often a symptom of poor water cycle function , driven by: Simplified crop rotations Reduced plant diversity Periods of bare soil Tillage or chemical disturbance Limited living roots Each of these reduces the soil’s ability to: Infiltrate water Store moisture Support biological activity Instead of soaking in water, ponds. Instead of being used by plants, it sits and eventually moves salts into problem areas. Why Soil Salinity Could Worsen This Year In many affected fields: Soils were saturated last year Crops drowned out in spots Living roots were absent or removed Soil structure was weakened Now, those same areas may enter spring with: Little residue No active root systems High exposure to evaporation This combination creates ideal conditions for salt expression and expansion . And once salinity shows up, it rarely stays contained. What Happens If Salinity Is Left Untreated Saline areas don’t stay the same size. They grow. Even when treated, salts can continue to move outward if the underlying system isn’t addressed. What starts as a small patch can gradually take over larger portions of a field, reducing productivity and profitability over time. Soil Salinity Management: What You Can Do Right Now The most effective response is also the simplest in principle: Reduce evaporation. Increase water use through living plants. In practical terms, that means: Identify vulnerable areas early (standing water, crop stress, low spots) Establish plant cover as soon as possible Maintain surface residue Keep living roots in the soil Even small, early interventions can make a difference. The longer soil remains bare, the more opportunity evaporation has to pull salts to the surface. A Better Question for Long-Term Soil Health Salinity is often treated as a localized issue—a bad patch in an otherwise productive field. But the conditions driving it are rarely local. They are systemic. So instead of asking: “How do I fix this saline spot?” A better question is: “What is my soil doing with water across this entire field?” That shift in thinking is where long-term solutions begin. Explore More on Soil Salinity (and What Comes Next) If you’re seeing some of these patterns on your own ground, it may be worth spending a bit of time with the material we’ve been putting together on salinity—videos, conversations with producers, and practical resources from the field. You can explore all of that here:   https://www.growingresiliencesd.com/soilsalinity   We’ll come back to this in the next piece and take a closer look at what people are actually doing on the ground. __________ Visit these “Growing Resilience Through Our Soils” information pages: 1. Podcast page for drought planning fact sheets, Q&As, news, podcasts, and more. 2. Video page to watch videos of other ranchers’ journeys toward improved rangeland/pasture. 3. Follow Growing Resilience on social media: Facebook - Growing Resilience Twitter - @GrowResilience_ Instagram - growingresilience.sd 4. Our homepage: www.growingresiliencesd.com

Beresford, SD Research Station. Photo credit: randy Halverson By Buz Kloot This research summary expands on our earlier blog, “No-Till, No Yield: Are We Putting Corn Above Soybean Yields?” . After taking a short pause in posting, we realized we still have much more to share on the tillage conversation — and this piece offers a timely refresher before we dive deeper into the economics of rotation and soil resilience. Background Our earlier article asked whether focusing on corn yields alone gives a distorted picture of no-till performance. The evidence suggests it does. When soybeans and rotation diversity enter the equation, the economics shift — often in favor of no-till systems. No-Till Performance in South Dakota and Beyond At SDSU’s Beresford Research Farm , Pete Sexton and colleagues (2018) tracked 27 years of corn–soybean data under no-till and conventional tillage. Corn : Conventional tillage outyielded no-till by an average of 6.1 bu/ac. Soybeans : No-till outperformed by 1.8 bu/ac. But in 3- and 4-year rotations , the results reversed: No-till corn exceeded conventional yields by 1.3–1.8 bu/ac. No-till soybeans gained 1.4–2.5 bu/ac. These findings demonstrate that as rotations lengthen, yield gaps close — and often flip in favor of no-till. A University of Minnesota  study (DeJong-Hughes & Vetsch, 2007) found similar patterns. Cool years penalized no-till corn by 9.6 bu/ac, while warmer years narrowed that to 4.7 bu/ac. When averaged, these outcomes align with Beresford’s long-term results. Rotation Diversity Pays In her 2022 M.S. thesis, Natalie Sturm  studied irrigated corn and wheat systems at Dakota Lakes Research Farm. She found that diverse rotations  — particularly those including small grains and legumes — improved soil structure, moisture efficiency, and total grain yields.These gains reinforce the conclusion that rotation diversity enhances no-till performance  and resilience. Economics and Farmer Behavior As Dr. Dwayne Beck  of Dakota Lakes puts it: “Farmers vote with their fields.”The persistence of no-till across the Northern Plains is a practical verdict — not a philosophical one. Growers stick with systems that offer a better return relative to risk , and long-term no-tillers consistently report reduced input costs, improved soil water use, and stable yields across variable years. Looking Ahead The next question is purely economic: What does a longer rotation really cost — or save — over time? Research from Brookings and on-farm trials across South Dakota suggest that extended rotations can actually improve profitability, even when corn takes a smaller share of acres. We’ll explore that in our next post. References Beck, D. (n.d.). Unifying Principles: Similarities Among Prairie Ecosystems.  Dakota Lakes Research Farm.DeJong-Hughes, J., & Vetsch, J. (2007). On-Farm Comparison of Conservation Tillage Systems for Corn Following Soybeans.  University of Minnesota.Pittelkow, C. M., Liang, X., Linquist, B. A., et al. (2015). Productivity limits and potentials of the principles of conservation agriculture.   Nature, 517 , 365–368.Sexton, P., Rops, B., Stevens, R., Williamson, G., & Sweeter, C. (2018). Long-Term Rotation and Tillage Study: Observations on Corn and Soybean Yields – 2018 Season.  SDSU Southeast Research Farm Annual Report.Sturm, N. (2022). It’s Not Just No-Till: Crop Rotations are Key to Improving Soil Quality and Grain Yields at Dakota Lakes Research Farm.  M.S. Thesis, South Dakota State University.   __________ Visit these “Growing Resilience Through Our Soils” information pages: 1. Podcast page for drought planning fact sheets, Q&As, news, podcasts, and more. 2. Video page to watch videos of other ranchers’ journeys toward improved rangeland/pasture. 3. Follow Growing Resilience on social media: Facebook - Growing Resilience Twitter - @GrowResilience_ Instagram - growingresilience.sd 4. Our homepage: www.growingresiliencesd.com