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Managing residue cover is critical to maintaining soil biology over winter and preparing the soil for timely planting next spring. Farmers' decisions in the fall significantly impact how quickly residues degrade, how much carbon is retained in the soil, and how quickly soils can warm in the spring.

Soil health is most meaningfully assessed based on its ability to produce marketable yield per unit of farmer input under varied growing conditions. Because all inputs and management practices have some trade-offs, growers need to do more than just determine if a product or practice will work in isolation. They need to be sure that all their choices work together as an efficient system to achieve the desired result of producing healthy, abundant, and sustainable harvests year

Water management, and by default, air management in soils and crop production, is often an underappreciated factor in developing a successful agronomic plan. As so often occurs in any industry, the majority of attention is focused on where the bulk of the money is swallowed up. Fertilizer inputs tend to be one of the perennial favorites for spending, and it automatically attracts the attention of consultants and growers alike.

Kyle’s soils are the kind most experts consider limiting - very sandy, coarse, low single‑digit CEC, low organic matter. Yet three years after adopting the System, Kyle won the NCGA Michigan No‑Till Irrigated Yield Award with a 296‑bushel corn crop.

In agriculture, it’s easy to believe the next product will be the one that finally changes everything. A new input. A new recommendation. A new “fix.” But after years of on‑farm trials and real‑world testing, Jeff Ellis of PJ Family Farms reached a different conclusion: there is no silver bullet. Jeff and his wife Paula farm approximately 1,700 acres near Donnelson, Iowa. By 2016, they weren’t interested in adding another product.

"300+ bushel corn. 100 bushel soybeans. The System works." Wiegmann Farms in Breese, Illinois didn’t just adopt the Maximum Farming System, they proved its scalability and profitability. What started with skepticism turned into a disciplined, data-driven approach that delivered exceptional results. From Skeptic to System Champion Like many farmers, Wiegmann Farms questioned whether a system could outperform traditional methods. But after seeing early results, they committed f