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Northwest Missouri farmers ‘love no till planting’

A Midwest farmer has saved more than just the soil by giving up most tillage practices twenty-eight years ago.  Morris Heitman can’t wait to get back into the field.

“I farm with my brother and this is year 48 that we’ve been together,” said Heitman.

What is most important to Heitman is that for many of those 48 seasons, he’s done no tillage, or so little of it that one would be hard pressed to notice.

“We love no till planting,” said Heitman, who also is president of the Missouri Corn Growers Association.  “A: The cost of putting seeds in the ground as far as tillage, fuel, wear and tear on machinery is a lot less.  The primary advantage to it is that it cuts erosion down to just a mere fraction of what it would have been otherwise.”

Because of the way he farms, Heitman acknowledges that he and his brother contribute to sustainable farming.

“Well, if that’s what sustainability is, yeah, we certainly have,” said Heitman.

Heitman and his brother farm in the northwest corner of Missouri.

AUDIO: Morris Heitman (5 min. MP3)