Fall plowing is one of those things that seemed like a good idea at the time but it's more like a bad dream today. It's almost like going back to 1980 and buying a farm at 18% interest. After a few years the cost becomes too much to bear.

We've been told that he University of Illinois was one of the early advocates of fall plowing. Their researchers discovered that fall plowing usually provided higher yields compared to plowing in the spring. It also seemed like a good way to help farmers handle more acres by allowing them to spread out their workload. Not too many years ago nearly every field in Central Illinois was turned black before Christmas. If the land had to be plowed a little wet it was okay because the soil would mellow over the winter.

Today fall plowing is no longer considered a sign of good management. Over a period of several years the costs in fuel and wind and water erosion were too high. It has become apparent that burying all the surface cover depletes the life in the soil not to mention the many species of wildlife that depend on crop residues for food and cover.

The chisel plow has served as a compromise measure. Chisel plow tillage systems leave some cover on the land but on steeper land a chisel plow system is really only an interim step. Chisel plow systems do not provide adequate cover for long term erosion control on highly erodible fields that are farmed to corn and soybeans. Many of the concerns about destroying soil life, energy costs and wildlife habitat remain.

The most advanced farmers are moving beyond the chisel plow. No-till is probably the wrong name for these systems. If crops are to be grown the soil has to be disturbed when fertilizer is injected and during planting operations. These are the times when precise bands of minimum tillage are used to warm and aerate the soil in the area where the seed will be planted. The row cleaners or multiple coulters that are being added to no-till planters and fertilizer are one variation of this system.

Combining fall fertilization or spring planting with the minimum amount of zone tillage required to get the seed off to a good start seems to be the current state of the art in planting systems. Maybe it's time to coin a new name for these tillage systems. Will we go from spring plow to fall plow, from chisel plow to no-till and now to new-till?

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