Bill Crabtree at the Coonabarabran no-till workshop. Affectionately known as 'No-Till Bill', Mr Crabtree has a lot of credibility and his workshops proved that he communicates well with farmers.

With the price of fuel expected to remain high, it is reasonable to assume more farmers will be forced to make the move to no-till farming to reduce costs.

If the numbers attending the recent no-till workshops by Western Australian consultant, Bill Crabtree, is anything to go by, there is already a lot of interest.

Around 140 farmers turned up to workshops at Inverell, Tamworth and Coonabarabran to hear the no-till guru’s 'no-till works everywhere' message, delivered in conjunction with the Facilitating No-tillage and Conservation Farming Practise conference at Tamworth Agricultural Institute.

Introduced initially to stop wind erosion in sandy soils and water erosion in gravely and hilly soils, WA was among the fastest regions of the world to take on no-tillage and now boasts 80 percent adoption.

'WA farmers soon discovered, in the early 1990s, that no-tillage gave far greater benefits than soil conservation alone,' Mr Crabtree said.

Soils that were structurally damaged and almost impossible to establish crops in [by tilling] could be no-tilled with confidence, and through time these damaged soils have softened greatly with improved soil-water infiltration.

'Weeds were found to be easier to manage and time of sowing was consistently improved - this reflected in better whole farm crop yields.

'The difficult starts to the drought years in WA in 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2004 have shown the ability of no-tillage to give drought resistance - farmers are now able to sow on time into minimal soil moisture.

'Small rainfall events are enough to reliably establish crops as water is efficiently harvested into the furrows, usually on 25-30 centimetre row spacings and aided by minimum disturbance planters and press-wheels.'

He said no-tillage has made difficult seasons economically and socially manageable, although adoption was not without barriers.

While NSW started its push for no-till in the early 1980s, adoption here has been much slower than WA: a 2002 survey showed variation between 15 and 40 percent between districts in the north of the State.

Department of Primary Industries (DPI) farming systems specialist, John Kneipp, who remembers the first no-till conference at Tamworth in 1983, is surprised more farmers have not made the move.

'There are so many great achievements by growers who have experimented and perfected their no-till systems,' Mr Kneipp said.

'In the ’70s and ’80s we had some very wet seasons and we saw an enormous amount of soil destroyed and washed away, and people have forgotten that era.'

Mr Kneipp firmly believes farmers are in a much better position to handle no-tillage now but there is still a long way to go.

He said they can no longer afford not to adopt no-tillage because of the cost of fuel and the requirement for more efficient use of water.

'Many farmers were unable to sow during the drought years, yet farmers who switched to no-tillage have repeatedly been able to get a crop,' he said.

'In an extremely dry summer of 2005-06, no-tiller devotees like Neil Barwick at Willow Tree have harvested sorghum crops of five to six tonnes per hectare.'