No-Till Farming Keeps Lake Erie Clear
By Sandy Bihn, Western Lake Erie Waterkeeper
The Myers are a fifth generation farm family who have farmed the rich black soils near the shores of Lake Erie in Northwest Ohio since 1890. Ivan Myers and his two sons farm 1,700 acres in the Western Lake Erie/Maumee Watershed. This watershed is the single largest contributor of phosphorous and sediments to Lake Erie and all of the Great Lakes.

Lake Erie is the shallowest and warmest of the Great Lakes, requiring almost constant dredging to allow shipping traffic. No-till farming is one solution to reduce sediment runoff into the watershed.

About 20 years ago when the government was first trying to reduce sediments from flowing into Lake Erie, Ivan Myers was watching the wind blowing the soil from his fields. Loose topsoil washed into ditches and streams with rain and eventually into Lake Erie. Ivan Myers decided to try no-till farming. No-till is the practice of not ‘digging up’ and turning over the soil with the old crops to prepare for the new. No-till allows vegetation to remain in the winter months so plants and their roots hold the soil in place. No-till provides fields with a natural cover.

Ivan said about his first year in no-till, “There were pickup trucks driving past to look at the field. They all said ‘Myers flipped his lid.’ I was nervous when I planted, but those little beans started climbing right up through those corn stalks and pretty soon you couldn’t see the stalks under the beans. We got a really good crop that year.”

The Myers family produces corn, soybeans, wheat and hay using no-till. They say that these conservation no-till practices save money on fuel and equipment. The Myers family designed some of their own equipment to make no-till work and they have won numerous yield awards through the years, due in part to their leadership in no-till farming.

The Myers farm is a great example of farmers innovating to help the watershed, the environment and themselves.