On this episode of Conservation Ag Update, brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment, longtime no-tiller Ross Bishop shares some of the keys to achieving even corn emergence with no-till. Plus, Chuck Gruenberger from John Deere dealer Riesterer & Schnell explains why fields without cover crops are like rebellious teenagers! 

In the Cover Crop Connection, associate editor Mackane Vogel unpacks some key findings from the CTIC/SARE National Cover Crop Survey Report. 

Later in the episode, Brownsburg, Ind., No-Till Innovator Mike Starkey reacts to recent federal ag funding cuts. Plus, a technology leader at the FEMA Convention shares a bold prediction about the future of ag equipment, and finally in our Video of the Week, a no-tiller in Nebraska starts planting corn in early April.

This episode of Conservation Ag Update is brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment.

 Since 1930, Yetter Farm Equipment has been providing farmers with profitable solutions. From residue management and fertilizer placement to seedbed preparation, our equipment is designed to maximize your inputs, save you time, and deliver a strong return on investment. Explore our full line of planter attachments, precision fertilizer placement options, strip-till units, and stalk rollers at yetterco.com. Let Yetter help you prepare your equipment lineup for success today.


TRANSCRIPT

Jump to a section or scroll for the full episode...

Plant Corn at 2-Plus Inches for Even Emergence

Happy planting season! We’re always asking you guys for suggestions at the end of every episode because this is your show. I’ve gotten a few requests for more planter talk. Let’s go with a little viewer’s choice to kick things off — Here’s Jackson, Wis., no-tiller Ross Bishop sharing some keys to success with his Case IH planter.  

“These are the areas where I put the nitrogen (N), the ammonium thiosulfate because we need sulfur. That’s dribbling right alongside each side of the row. This is where I’m putting a 9-18-9 starter with zinc and molasses. That’s falling right down into the seed trench. I learned this from the guys who plant sweet corn — I’m planting corn at 2 inches or better. We’re getting better emergence, rather than having one come out of the ground today, another one comes out tomorrow. They’re all coming out within 12 hours because of that 2-2.5 inches, it’s a much more even emergence. You don’t have that corn that comes later on that becomes a weed. You’re not wasting that seed. I’ve slowed way down. I used to plant at 5.5, now I’m more at 4.8-5. Maybe I should slow down even more because the more accurate we are, the better the emergence of the corn.”

That was filmed at one of the Cedar Creek Farmers field days.

Why Fields Without Covers are Like Bad Teenager

Another highlight from that event included a planter 101 session with Chuck Gruenberger of Deere dealer Riesterer & Schnell, during which Chuck compared an empty field without covers to a rebellious teenager. 

“An empty grain field is like a teenager. We all have teenagers or had them. If you leave that teenager on its own with nothing to do, what happens to your teenager? It will run away on you. It will go bad. It will grow weeds — marijuana, drinking, causing trouble. That’s a teenager. If you keep your soil with something in it all the time, busy, something to do, you give your teenager something to do all the time, they don’t cause any trouble, or less anyhow, at least manageable trouble. Same as no-tilling and cover crops. You put the seeds in the ground, you plant it, it grows up somewhat manageable. If you get your teenager wild, you can’t manage it anymore.”

2025 National Cover Crop Survey Release

More than 650 farm advisors from across the U.S. participated in a survey on cover crops, shining light on how they advise growers on cover crops. A report on the survey was released this week by the Conservation Technology Information Center (CTIC), USDA SARE Program, and the American Seed Trade Association. This is the eighth national cover crop survey conducted by those groups since 2012 and the first to focus on advisors. Here’s a short clip shedding light on some of the results. 

“Those that actually have experience working with cover crops have become very convinced of the benefits and that’s something we hear from farmers widely, that once they’ve had a few years of experience with cover crops, they really tend to stick with them. They have become a believer in the benefits for soil health and other aspects of their farming and ultimately in their economic bottom line. So one of the questions was what percentage of your farmer clients use cover crops — of course this varied from advisor to advisor but overall 54% of those have said that it was a quarter or less of their farmers and this isn't surprising. Keep in mind a lot of these farm advisors are advising dozens of clients that have a variety of farming approaches.”

“The barriers that you hear about from farmers not adopting cover crops — keep in mind that these are perceptions that are from farmers who haven’t gotten into cover cropping but it’s important to acknowledge that these perceptions are driving farmers’ decision making. So the two big ones there are the economic return, there’s a question from those who have not yet used them — is this really going to pay off for me? Understandably any farmer making a decision on spending money on inputs, whether its cover crop seed, new equipment, fungicide, they have to evaluate the economics. So there’s a perception among those who haven’t used them that there might not be that economic return especially in the first year. We could look at our past cover crop surveys of farmers to see quite a bit of economic data that actually does show that cover crops pay off — especially after the first 2-3 years. But again, this is a perception that holds some farmers back.”

Some really interesting figures and notes from that data, and we will have plenty more coverage to follow that will dive even deeper into those results so be sure to stay tuned for more content coming soon on Cover Crop Strategies. 

No-Till Innovator Reacts to Recent Funding Cuts

Top story on No-TillFarmer.com — A federal grant program that helped drive cover crop and no-till adoption and other climate-focused practices has been cancelled by the Trump administration over concerns about “sky-high administration fees.” Brownsburg, Ind., no-tiller Mike Starkey tells us he’s kind of nervous about some of the recent cuts he’s seen, but it won’t stop him from doing what he’s doing.

“We’re somewhat nervous about it. We actually had a cut in our local soil water conservation district office yesterday. It’s someone that we really depended on. We’re concerned about the grants, the CSP, the CRP, EQIP, so on and so forth. Is that something that’s going to set us back for all we’ve done to improve our soils? It’s kind of nerve-wracking but we take it day by day, and we’ll somehow overcome if there’s any issues with funding regardless because I’m going to continue what I’m doing.”

A Glimpse into the Future at FEMA Convention

Let’s head south now to Fort Myers, Fla., for the Farm Equipment Manufacturers Association convention. Mach CEO Colin Hurd served as technology chair for the event. One of his goals is to help manufacturers incorporate more technology into their machinery because that’s where he sees the industry headed in the next 5 years.  

“I think we saw a glimpse into the future this morning. We saw a robot, but really what it was is a farm implement. If you ask a farmer today, tell me about farm equipment manufacturers, they’re not going to use the word robot. I think in the next 5-10 years, the word robotics and farm implements are going to be a lot more synergistic, meaning there’s just going to be a lot more automation. How do you make decisions on an implement? How do you augment an operator’s job and make an implement more intelligent to do a job better, more efficiently and really scale that across an operation. I think we’re going to see a lot more of that — fundamentally, that’s robotics.” 

Video of the Week: No-Till #Plant25 Underway

#Plant25 is underway, with 4% of corn planted nationwide according to the first USDA Crop Progress Report. The Freed Brothers crew in Phelps County, Neb., started no-tilling corn last Sunday, and here’s what it looked like in the Video of the Week.

 


They’re among the 1% who’s planted corn in Nebraska so far.

That’ll do it for this week. Got something you’d like to feature on the program? Shoot me an email at Nnewman@Lessiter Media.com. Thanks for tuning into Conversation Ag Update. Until next time, for more stories visit no-tillfarmer.com, striptillfarmer.com and covercropstrategies.com.