No-till notes - soil microbe testing

The first thing I want to tell you about soil microbe testing is that this type of testing is in its infancy. Dr. Ray Ward, founder of Ward Laboratories in Kearney, has just begun to explore this type of soil testing. It’s safe to say that Ray will be learning along with the producers who send in samples for this type of soil health testing.

Approximately one month ago I sent Dr. Ward soil samples from a neighbor’s winter wheat/summer fallow cropping rotation, our continuous no-till dry land field where we produce winter wheat, corn, and field pea in a continuous no-till system, and our...