It's good to hear about some local no-till farmers. My only experience with it before has been in Oklahoma, and hearing my grandfather, an agronomist, tell me about it. He still tills his garden every spring, but has a very permaculture-without-saying-so hedgerow that is really cool to visit. My thoughts are that the no-till model is great to get more ideas circulating among big-acreage farmers. Of coursepermaculture goes in its whole crazy direction, so it's nice to have middle ground that isn't too much of a stretch. I eagerly look forward to what the http://www.landinstitute.org/|Land Institute is discovering. My attempt to correctly sum it up, is that they are discovering prairie perennial polycultures, whether native or with some tweaking. And they're just a hop, skip, jump from my grandparents.
Jeremy Bunag
Subject: Keep your soil
A nice read on how we're losing soil, but at least it gives a possible solution (ought to seem familiar!):