Most farmers would rather not burn cereal grain stubble. But much of our exceptional county produces a high volume of crop residue that is often difficult to handle. In the last 10 years, many farmers have converted to low-disturbance tillage; that is, they no longer plow and disk their fields. They drill the seed directly into the ground using specialized equipment such as no-till drills or air seeders.  This means we are spared those horrific dust storms of the past, as the crop residue and plant crowns and roots are left to hold the soil. The massive erosion that washed tens of thousands of tons of top-soil into our rivers and streams has all but stopped. But low-disturbance tillage can be a challenge to manage since the key to crop production still requires good seed-to-soil contact.  In those rare instances where a producer desires to re-crop a field back to fall cereals, stubble burning can provide the means to improve the performance of the grain drills.  If they use their disk or plow to work the residue under, then water and wind erosion becomes a problem again. By burning the residue, the roots and crowns stay in the ground, erosion is reduced, and the farmers can use their drills to direct seed the ground.