Keith Berns rarely recommends a ready-made cover crop mix. He advises farmers to begin with the problem they want to solve, experiment under their own conditions, and decide what matters most: maximum yield or profitability.
Two weeks, seven states, and about 7,000 kilometers across the U.S. Midwest. The journey ended in Chicago with one clear conclusion: farmers on both sides of the ocean face similar challenges, but often approach them differently.
At Michael Thompson’s farm in Kansas, no-till is only the beginning. Cover crops, livestock integration, and crop diversity form a broader system for conserving moisture, protecting the soil, and gradually restoring its health.
In Nebraska, we visited Green Cover Seed. What interested me most were the demonstration plots, where you can see the individual components of cover crop mixes, and the story of a company that grew out of the needs of its founders’ own farm.
In Illinois and Iowa, farmers leave strips of perennial grass in natural depressions to carry runoff safely across fields. One farmer said he would keep them even without government payments because they protect the soil.
We’re flying from Krakow to Chicago to begin an agricultural study tour across the U.S. Midwest. Ahead are farm visits, conversations with American farmers, and plenty of observations to share.
At Butenko Farm, sandy plots where almost nothing once grew are gradually being restored with compost made from organic matter already available on the farm.
There is no ready-made formula at Butenko Farm. Different approaches are tested, costs are compared, and a farming system suited to local conditions is gradually taking shape.
At Ką pasėsi… 2026 in Kaunas, I was reminded once again that countries may differ, but our fields ask very similar questions. And the conversation did not end with the last slide.
Thirteen years ago, at a conference at Agro-Soyuz, I recorded my first interview with Eduard Romankov. That conversation marked the beginning of the No-Tiller channel. We recently met again, and this time everything turned out completely differently. The reason was a comment in the “Hardcore No-Tillers” group by Igor Cheredyuk: “I want to ask, is it true or not that …