Sounds like he was ahead of his time as quite a few farmers are discovering mixed plantings, cover crops, trees and no-till give them more soil fertility than commercial fertilizers can and they’re actually building top soil and reducing or eliminating rain/water runoff.
Gabe Brown in SD rolls and crimps a cover crop or rye to terminate it and uses a no drill seeder to plant corn into the terminated cover crop. Zero commercial fertilizer, pesticide or weed control and is corn grows better than the neighbor who uses Big AG techniques and his farm is very resilient to weather factors. No rain, no problem, 12 inches of rain in a few days, his land soaks it all up.
He also does mob grazing of cattle, builds soil using the technique and uses no dewormer/meds or fly control. It mimics the bison/buffalo who used to stay in a tight group for predator protection. The grass gets trampled, manure gets trampled with it and then soil life till it all in.
Plenty of small market gardeners are doing similar things but people like Gabe are going large scale with it. They say the improved soil actually sequesters carbon and puts it back into the ground.
They’re in a race with those who want to do away with real beef and swap us to lab made crap.
Here is one thing they discovered. Using Manure for fertilizer exclusively actually reduced production..and then increased weeds, which we already knew.
He indicated plainly on there that strip farming was advantageous to water retention. Hold the snow from blowing off the fields so when spring comes it allows for the winter crops to get the water they need for restarting growth.
Also, water introduced at proper times of growth for increase of production. Need not water all the time constantly, just enough at those times to supplement and then increase at the proper times to increase plant production.
Moreover, we have to keep in mind that top soils are only about 12 to 18 inches deep in that region.