First I will say I'm not against "no till" per-se, so don't waste time, effort, telling me I don't understand, looking at it all wrong etc. And,, I am looking at the issue from binoculars at about 1000 miles away.

Anyway there are a couple different factor's I notice.

I recall the post about the guy with the grain cart falling through the wood bridge and the discussion of the 100,000,+ weight of just the cart/grain plus the tractor. THen there is the big equipment-tractor's themselves running over the ground then there are discussions about how much how close to put tile and how to get the water away with easements etc..

Then there's a consistent talk about wet ground,how to get combines to keep from sinking up to the cab windows, how wet it is in the spring trying to not get stuck while planting,,etc.etc.etc.

End result logic seems there has got to be some real compaction problems. soil wet enough to be filling tile, then running 100,000 +lb equipment, on the same ground would compact-settle the soil down allot.

On a 1 year basis,,, there wouldn't be an issue,, but I'm thinking about 5-8-12 years of continously doing this same practice.

The other issue I look at is product quality. Now if it's grain (corn-soybeens) considering the amount of air used in combines it's pretty easy to get a clean product into the bin- or market place.  But, in small grain's, seed pea's, beans, etc.. The customer demands quality. If it's a grain, (wheat-etc) there better be 1 thing in the bin/truck, wheat and only wheat period.  Anything other than wheat,, and the dockage starts kicking in at 1/2 percent,, climbing by every 1/2 percent in dockage.  I've seen farmer's with P _ _ _ Poor weed control docked so much on seed pea's the dockage equaled the income off the seed pea's.

I marvel at poster's talking about seeding alfalfa in grass fields, grass in alfalfa fields etc, etc..  In MY area  when producing any kind of "hay" be it sudan grass, alfalfa, timothy, teff, orchard grass, oat hay, etc,etc,etc.  Again,, there better be 1 thing and only 1 thing in that bale, the product you are selling.  Timothy with any blue grass in it will not sell period for export. If a person is selling Alfalfa, there better not be any oat hay in it. If there's anything in the bale other than what a person is advertising/selling,, the customer simply will not buy it.  The customer looks at buying any type of "hay" like buying an apple in the store,, walk down the isle-pick up-purchase- and bite into the apple and they expect it to be an apple all the way through. WHen the customer buys a bale of Alfalfa they expect Alfalfa, ANYTHING even if it's timothy, oat hay, etc.. is considered a "weed" and they won't buy it.

Another issue is root crops,, onions, potatoes, carrots, beets, etc,etc,etc.  The very harvesting of root crops pretty much shoots down the "no-til" concept. By the time the digger has dug down 10-12-14 inches (or whatever depth) ran the crop and dirt up and shook out/filtered the crop from the dirt,, no till is  "out the window" so to speak.

Last year I planted timothy directly into the stubble of a Teff crop, got a fair stand. In the spring,, at first cutting of Timothy,, I had crop residue from the preceding crop in the timothy bales. The quality was right on the *line* where the customer wasn't going to buy the timothy regardless of price. This year I seeded down another field to timothy,, had a "fair" stand of timothy but there were weeds in the hay. That timothy is NOT selling at ANY PRICE. I had to roundup the entire field after the 1st cutting and reseed the field at a cost of $120/acre.  I did NOT disk-plow- etc before re-seeding the 2nd time,, and hoping the "no till" seeding will work.  It should be noted this is only the 3rd time I've EVER seeding down a "hay crop" into anything but bare dirt, and out of 3 times doing it,, I've got 1 complete failure,, 1 "ah-s_ _T" crop, and one  1/2 A$$ acceptable crop. Just looking at hay and grain's having any previous "crop residue" above ground in the field is an Economic disaster in MY Area.

I'm no fan of spending hours and hours plowing-disking-running a field cultivator- standing there pouring tank after tank of diesel into tractor's,, but  "no till" doesn't really present any benefit/bonus/etc/ in the market place when the customer simply turn's and walks away from any product that is NOT a pristeen clean product, or "docks" the product to the point there it is a money LOSING crop. 

Just yesterday a customer refused to buy a semi load of Teff.  Spring 08, I went out disked the field 2 times,early as I could get into the field, (only tillage done) let the field sit for 4-5 weeks. Then,, 5-6 day's prior to planting teff, I shot the ground/weeds with a good dose of Roundup/spreader-sticker/drift stop, getting a 100 percent kill. Soon as the Teff was tall enough,, I shot the field with 24D-banvil/spreader sticker and got every broadleaf that was brave enough to stick it's head above ground. I had zero broadleaf, zero perenial grasses, etc..in the crop.  The only "WEED" I had was *watergrass* (annual bluegrass)

and the customer refused to buy the Teff, period. NOT every bale had any *watergrass* in it,, it was just a few bales in the wet spots in the field that had anything other than teff in them.  In short the Customer expects an Apple and only an apple when they are buying.

So, what I'm pointing out/questioning is while "no-till" is perfect for some conditions, in some area's, for some crops,, the "GOVERNMENT IDEA"  1 size fits ALL,,, does not seem to hold true for every condition, every area, every crop.