No-till is essentially a ROLS soil, you just re-amend it instead of recycle it. The soil gets "recycled" by adding more organic nutrients into the mix and allowing it to sit until the microbiology develops. However, with a no-till bed we take care of things by simply top dressing the no-till beds with the same organic amendments we used when we first re-amended the soil. Like me for example; I only use kelp/crab/neem meal for my amendments. When I make a new soil, I amend it with 1/2 cup of all 3 amendments. However when I top dress, I use around 1/4 cup of each instead and then cover that with some compost or EWC.. depends on what I have available. So no-till pretty much is ROLS, we just don't dump the pots at harvest is all, simply top dressing it with the same amendments and some compost will constantly keep your microbes happy. The other thing that's nice about no-till is they are typically done in large containers and as I pointed out above, you'll have a much more diverse population of microbes in a no-till than you ever could in a ROLS grow. There have been studies shown that demonstrate that there are actually specific species of bacteria in a living soil that are responsible for developing terpenes in it's host plant which could explain why people experience exponentially better results in no-till beds depending on how old the soil web is. Think of your microbiology as a city. In ROLS, this city only has 3-4 months to develop until it gets destroyed and started from scratch. However in no-till, this city never stops developing until you dump it out and recycle it. The result is not just a more diverse population of microbes, but an infinitely more sturdy population as well. Eventually your no-till bed's population of microbes will get to a point that you experience explosive growth immediately upon transplant because your no-till bed is filled with an entire web of microbes just itching for a new host plant to achieve symbiosis with. As a result of these factors, you will experience better yields, potency, and even flavor because you have a massive amount of soil filled to the brim with little microbes waiting to attach themselves to another plant.
However, unlike ROLS there are quite a few cons associated with a no-till grow that make learning no-till quite the learning curve. I had the pleasure of figuring out a lot of these cons the hard way of course xD
The thing you have to consider about your no-till bed is the rate at which your medium decomposes. Take a 30g pot for example, it starts off with 10g of peat/perlite/compost each on average right? Well, within a few months (depending on the size of your pot) that 10g of peat will react with the organic amendments in the medium, as a result that 10g of peat will eventually become 10g of compost over time. While this sounds great in theory it actually causes a ridiculous amount of problems if you aren't careful. While compost has incredible water retention properties, it is absolute shit when it comes to drainage. Eventually that 30g pot will become 20g compost and 10g aeration/drainage, which means your no-till bed will not be draining properly. If your no-till bed isn't draining properly then there likely isn't much oxygen either, if any at all. So your no-till bed will then proceed to go anaerobic due to a lack of oxygen and on top of that, you put yourself at risk for root rot as well because the roots are constantly saturated in water. And if that wasn't enough, your pH will also be thrown out of whack because the medium is literally flooded with water.
I found this one out the hard way, and that's why I don't follow the 1:1:1 ratio of peat/compost/aeration anymore for no-till beds. If you follow that ratio, your bed will start to cause you more trouble than you thought possible because eventually that 1:1:1 ratio of peat/compost/aeration becomes a 2:1 ratio of compost/aeration making it incredibly difficult for the roots to move and breathe as well as creating an environment that only anaerobic bacteria can survive in. The other issue you'll run into with no-till beds is soil compaction, which is pretty much unavoidable no matter what you do. When you have such a large mass of soil you will always have soil compaction over time, there is literally nothing you can do to avoid soil compaction, all you can do is slow down the rate at which your soil compacts.. never stop it.
So because of the above issues with soil compaction as well as organic matter constantly decomposing, you actually don't want to follow the 1:1:1 ratio or you will experience these issues by your 2nd no-till cycle. To compensate for these issues, I've begun using 50% perlite, 30% peat, and 20% compost.. I'll likely end up switching to 50% perlite, 40% peat, and 10% compost. In ROLS, the reason you want the compost ratio to be equal to your peat/aeration is because you'll be recycling the mix again long before you run into any of these issues. For this reason, you want 33% compost in your mix because in the 3-4 months the mix is in pots it won't decompose fast enough to provide your plants with the amount of compost it needs. However, with no-till you'll be going for much longer than 3-4 months, as a result you want to account for the fact that your medium will decompose over time when you first create your no-till mix. I've started running 50% aeration/drainage for this exact reason, perlite doesn't decompose and you can run your no-till beds for a good 1-2 years before you have to recycle them. Your no-till bed will only need to be recycled once the 40% peat/10% compost decomposes to become 0% peat/50% compost. Eventually your no-till bed will decompose into nothing but perlite and compost, which requires you to empty the pots, mix everything with more peat moss and amendments, and start all over again.
Having 50% perlite in your mix will help to mitigate some of the effects of soil compaction, it will offer you plenty of drainage to compensate for your compost ratio increasing with every month that passes, and ensures that your bed will last as long as possible.
No-till beds require a lot more maintenance than ROLS itself too. With ROLS it's entirely possible to do nothing but water for the entire cycle and get excellent results because you won't have plants in the pots long enough for them to use all of the organic matter in your soil. However, with no-till beds eventually the microbes/roots will deplete your soil of any and all organic nutrients. For this reason, you'll need to top dress your bed every 3-6 weeks depending on how much or little your plants eat. You top dress with the same organic amendments you used when you first made the soil, then cover that top dress with a little compost or EWC and water it. This will need to be done every 3-6 weeks to ensure there are never any deficiencies.
If you have little to no experience with a living organic soil of any sort, I highly recommend starting with the ROLS method first until you get a better understanding of organics as a whole. It will be much easier on you and will be much less to focus on. Once you start experiencing success with the ROLS method then you can perhaps look into no-till, do a side by side for 6-12 months and see which one you prefer. I apologize for the lengthy reply and hope I was able to help, if you have any questions feel free to shoot them my way and I'll help to the best of my ability.
tl;dr
ROLS or no-till are both capable of amazing results. ROLS is vastly easier to manage by a long shot, however no-till will give you unique benefits that a ROLS grow can never possibly provide albeit at the cost of extra maintenance and a bigger learning curve.
