No-till, cover crops helping Texas grower fight drought

Published on December 19, 2012 13:02 by Water Network Research, Official research team of The Water Network in Technology

With less than an inch of rain falling since the beginning of October, many wheat crops in the area are beginning to fail. Not Henderson's. Three years ago he took a leap of faith and made a drastic change in his farming operation. With encouragement from the USDA's Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) and other sources, he became a no-till farmer. This meant instead of spending countless hours on the tractor plowing his land multiple times, Henderson would now only make one trip to plant the seeds with special no-till equipment and one trip to fertilize. Because of his history of conservation efforts on his land, Henderson was awarded a Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) contract from NRCS in 2009. This provided him with some financial assistance that made it feasible for him to purchase the no-till equipment. "Going no-till has changed my life," he says. "My wife is a school teacher and I actually have time to go on vacations with her in the summer now."

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