For Dick Tatum, the past 15 years have seen a tremendous number of changes in his farm and farming methods all in an effort to protect the sensitive watersheds in southeastern Kansas that supply drinking water for thousands of Kansans and in nearby Oklahoma.

Oxbows--cut off river bends that are often found as small, seasonally wet depressions along field edges--can be multipurpose conservation tools. Oxbows can store floodwater, filter runoff or drainage from tile lines, and act as nurseries for breeding fish.

Cameron Dinkins was home from college during Thanksgiving break when a streak of lightning lit up the farmland surrounding his family home, Linden Plantation, in Glen Allan, Mississippi. It had been raining for most of the day, and in that brief glimpse outside, he saw vast...

When Steve Reinford and his son, Brett, decided to invest in an anaerobic digester for the family dairy operation in Juniata County, Pennsylvania, in 2008, the two had different reasons for pursuing the technology. Making money wasn't necessarily one of them, but it has...

Perfectly straight. Precise depth. Well-turned with a round back. In a nutshell, that's how judges describe what they're looking for from contestants at the National Ploughing Championships.

Peter Fleming looks for crops that can maximize profits even in drought. That's one reason the North Carolina grower turned to sorghum, a crop University of Tennessee crop marketing specialist Aaron Smith calls "this ancient grain."

In Colorado's San Luis Valley, Brian Neufeld considers it a victory to save even 1 inch of irrigation water. The aquifer feeding his wells normally recharges relatively fast, but it has declined during the extreme drought of recent years. Now, area farmers are trying to...