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No tillage (NT) is often presented as a means to grow crops with positive environmental externalities, such as enhanced carbon sequestration, improved soil quality, reduced soil erosion, and increased biodiversity. However, whether NT systems are as productive as those relying on conventional tillage (CT) is a controversial issue, fraught by a high variability over time and space. Here, we expand existing datasets to include the results of the most recent field experiments, and we produce a global dataset comparing the crop yields obtained under CT and NT systems. In addition to crop yield, our dataset also reports information on crop growing season, management practices, soil characteristics and key climate parameters throughout the experimental year. The final dataset contains 4403 paired yield observations between 1980 and 2017 for eight major staple crops in 50 countries. This dataset can help to gain insight into the main drivers explaining the variability of the productivity of NT and the consequence of its adoption on crop yields. Measurement(s) yield trait • crop Technology Type(s) digital curation Factor Type(s) precipitation balance • temperature • crop species • soil texture • management of crop rotation • management of soil cover • management of field fertilization • management of weed and pest control • management of crop irrigation • geographic location Sample Characteristic - Organism Viridiplantae Sample Characteristic - Environment cultivated environment Sample Characteristic - Location global Machine-accessible metadata file describing the reported data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13303118 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]