Barry Fisher on Promoting No-Till and Covers with the NRCS

Recently retired from a multi-decade career with the NRCS, agronomist Barry Fisher has been a long-time booster of no-till. Based in his home state of Indiana, Fisher’s efforts helped the state’s no-till acres grow to the point where it was among the states with the highest percentage of no-till ground in the U.S.

Fisher devoted much of his government career to encouraging the adoption of no-till and cover crops. Over the years, he’s worked with thousands of farmers while conducting numerous field days and has tested a wide variety of no-till equipment options to demonstrate no-till best practices.

In this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators podcast, Frank Lessiter talks with Fisher about his lengthy career and the changes in no-till equipment and strategies he’s witnessed over the years. Join in as Fisher talks about why aerial seeding cover crops in ridge-till fields was successful, the equipment upgrades that made the biggest impact on-till success, how learning to manage the microenvironment around the seed made a big difference for corn-on-corn systems, how no-tillers can adopt organic practices by getting the soil to function at a higher level and much more.