No-Till Technology: Impacts on Farm Income, Energy Use and Groundwater Depletion in the Plains

Rapidly rising fuel costs for irrigation and tillage, combined with groundwater depletion confront producers in the Great Plains. Maintaining profits while production costs escalate and water levels decline emphasizes the need to increase water and energy use efficiency. A linear programming analysis for a ten-year period comparing conventional tillage practices with no-till practices based on an irrigated wheat/ no-till feedgrain /fallow crop rotation indicates no-till increases both water and energy use efficiency. Returns to land, management, and risk are substantially higher using no-till practices