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John Dobberstein:

Hello everyone. I'm John Dobberstein, senior editor over at No-Till Farmer Magazine. On behalf of our company, I hope everyone out there had a really good harvest this fall and that you're ready to look ahead to 2026 and what you want to accomplish on your farm.

There's no better way to get the best ideas and information to make your decisions than to attend the National No-Tillage Conference, which is slated for January 6th through the 9th in St. Louis. We'll have general sessions, classrooms, and round tables addressing the whole spectrum of management challenges you face on the farm, all in one place.

Please listen in as we share some highlights of what's to come in a few weeks. If you're already interested in attending the conference, go to notillconference.com and register using the code POD, P-O-D, to get $330 off the registration cost now. So that's only $249 for the full conference. The room block discount for the host hotel is only good through December 23rd. So if you're going to book your hotel room, do it now at notillconference.com before the price goes up.

Now, let's listen in to what's ahead at this year's conference.

Noah Newman:

Live from No-Till Farmer Headquarters AKA my office, this is the National No-Tillage Conference Preview Show. I'm your host, Noah Newman, technology editor, and hey, hope to see you in St. Louis for the 34th annual National No-Tillage Conference, January 6th through 9th. Notillconference.com if you want more information, if you want to download the program. When you sign up, now we put together this special top secret promo code just for you guys. When you sign up at notillconference.com and type in the promo code VIDEO, VIDEO promo code, you'll get a whopping 20% off your registration.

But right now, let's jump into the program and it all gets started January 6th, Tuesday, 4:00 to 6:00 PM with two pre-conference workshops. You have a couple to choose from, a planners and drills workshop with no-till innovators, Phil Needham and Bill Lehmkuhl, and a regenerative ag systems workshop with no-till innovator, Kris Nichols. She's a world-renowned soil microbiologist.

Then we'll get things going Wednesday, January 7th with the first set of 14 general sessions, 23 classrooms, and 40 round table discussions. I mean, we have speakers from all over the no-till world, including young no-tillers, veteran no-tillers, agronomists, engineers, educators, and much more. The real magic happens in between sessions. We have all that networking in the hallways, when you get to visit with our sponsors, I mean, just ask the guy who launched this conference back in 1993, No-Till Farmer founder, Frank Lessiter.

Frank Lessiter:

The best in the business, that's what we call it. This is the global gathering, network with fellow no-tillers from across the country and from several foreign countries. This is your chance to make one-on-one connections that you will need to move your no-till operation forward in 2026.

An energetic four days of nonstop learning and unlimited hallway networking with the most innovative, forward-thinking minds and no-till during this January event that kicks off your 2026 crop production season. 34 years strong. The National No-Tillage Conference is trusted by previous attendees to guarantee that you will go home with dozens of practical no-till ideas you can immediately put to work in your own operation during the coming year.

Noah Newman:

That Frank guarantee still stands. If you feel like the conference wasn't everything we promised, you will get your money back, 100% full refund. Just write us, let Frank know, "Hey." You were disappointed, and you'll get your refund, but don't have to worry about that.

Actually, right now, I'm being told by a producer that we have Marion Calmer standing by with a preview of his presentation. Marion, take it away.

Marion Calmer:

Hi, I'm Marion Calmer. I'm a no-tiller from Western Illinois. I've been no-tilling since 1985. And this year I get to talk at the National No-Till Conference and my subject is fine-tuning combines for a better no-till harvest. We're going to talk about things like setting up the grain platforms, setting up the corn heads, and obviously, we want to chew up that residue to get it to decompose both in corn or in soybeans so that we can feed the microbes and then it makes it easier to no-till the next year and spreading the residue out behind the combine.

Also, one of the cool things is we've learned how to rub out those green pods that we see during that early harvest. So with that, I look forward to seeing you in St. Louis in January for the National No-Till Conference.

Noah Newman:

That is four-time presenter of the year, Marion Calmer. Thanks for that preview, Marion. He's one of several no-till innovators who will be at the conference this year. We also added a couple new wrinkles to the program.

Right now, we're going to check in with Mike Lessiter, who's on the road for some exciting news about two brand new sessions we added to the schedule this year. Mike, take it away.

Mike Lessiter:

Hey, Noah. Thanks for the opportunity here. We're on our way back from Minnesota, Drew Lessiter and I, and wanted to give you a couple heads-up here about two very special things at the No-Till Conference in St. Louis. First is the first ever Shark Tank style ag tech pitches that we're doing. What we're doing with this session is there's going to be three entrepreneurs who are talking about their agtech startups. They'll be giving quick overviews of their product before three judges, so to speak, three investment bankers. This consists of our no-till Innovator of the Year alumni.

So they're going to ask questions, make comments, and what's going to happen is you're going to get a very quick overview of no-till technology in front of these experts, as well as the general session, a crowded ballroom of your peers. So it's a chance to see the future of ag technology through the lens of the practical farmers, no-tillers who know how to take the brilliance of the innovator's mind and bring it to real-world application and practical farm use.

The other one, Noah, that we wanted to talk about today was the first-ever TED Talk-style presentation that's making its debut at the 34th annual no-till conference. Never done anything like this before. This session is guaranteed to make you think, evaluate, and discuss with your other attendees throughout the rest of the event. What we're doing is we're bringing four expert presenters together, and it's going to be a fast-paced, deep-thinking, cloud-pushing type session that is really going to keep everybody engaged and moving forward here.

Here's who we have lined up for this. We have Carrie Vollmer-Sanders. She's an Indiana no-tiller with her husband and is also the executive at Field to Market, the Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture. What that group does is works with the entire value supply chain and ag, and she's going to have a really fascinating perspective for you.

Second is Elizabeth Burns-Thompson, who's the executive of the Modern Ag Alliance, which is out there working hard to ensure that farmers have access to the crop protection tools that are needed to make no-till work. You're probably familiar with some of the work they've done on the national scale. She's going to bring it home and tell you what she's working on and how it's going to help no-till.

Third is James Hepp. He's a young farmer, first-generation farmer from Iowa, and he's put together a no-till, strip-till, and cover crop system entirely on his own that he's making work in Iowa. He was also the recipient of the Young Farm Leadership Award in the state of Iowa. So he's going to have a great perspective in what the next generation is seeing.

Finally, we have Monte Bottens, an Illinois farmer. He practices no-till, regenerative agriculture, cover crops. He's got cattle. He's also been award winner of the Best Speaker Award at the No-Till Conference. So you're in for a treat with Monte taking a stage again. Think this is a great session and one that you're not going to want to miss, and hope to see you there in St. Louis.

Noah Newman:

Thanks for that. Mike, looking forward to those two sessions, and hey, Mike Starkey is actually going to be one of the sharks in the Ag Tech Shark Tank session. Mike has been coming to the conference year after year, and I had to ask him, "Hey, Mike, why do you keep coming back to no-till conference every year?" Here's what he said.

Mike Starkey:

If you're interested in improving your farming techniques, for one thing, you hear it from your peers. You're not going to hear it from Purdue University or whatever. You're going to hear from people that have actually done it. For me, it's a can't-miss event.

With that, I always take something that's, "Hey, I'm going to try this. " Not put the whole farm out there, but something I didn't even realize until I hear it from somebody else that's done it. So it's well worth the money and it's a fun getaway, obviously, also to see some old peers there and then hang out, just kind of get away from home for a couple days. In January, what the heck? You're not going to do anything in January at Indiana because it's darn right cold. So great event, highly recommend it.

Noah Newman:

Colts and Pacers Fanatic. Mike Starkey, thanks for those insights there.

All right, that'll do it for this National Not-Tillage Conference Preview Show. If you have any questions, shoot me an email at nnewman@lessitermedia.com, and don't forget about that top secret promo code VIDEO. VIDEO for 20% off your registration at notillconference.com.

Hope to see you January 6th through 9th in St. Louis. Until then, have a great day.

John Dobberstein:

We'll come back to the episode in a moment, but first I'd like to thank our podcast sponsor, Yetter Farm Equipment.

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Visit yetterco.com to learn more and find a dealer near you.

In addition to some of the new sessions of this year's no-till conference, we have nearly three dozen speakers on tap to deliver focused, practical information on conservation agriculture. Here are some of the highlights during our interviews with Monte Bottens, Pam Marrone, John Fulton, and John Bradley.

Monte Bottens:

Well, I'm excited to be a part of the No-Till conference this year, and thanks for asking me back. So I didn't make too many people mad last year, so that's a good sign, but it looks like a great lineup for St. Louis. St. Louis, always a great place to have one, and looking forward to a lot of the speakers that are there, but also this new format that you're doing this year where you got a select group of people and me, good people and me.

Then that are going to give short TED style talks, so 15, 17 minute presentations. So the neat part about that is a person has to get to the point and make it quick. A lot of times we've all been to meetings and we all have... We're in the fourth season right now of farming, right? There's planting, there's growing, and there's harvest. Then the fourth season's meeting season, and it can get a little tiresome, but I think it's going to introduce a new excitement into the whole program and be able to allow us to venture into some new ideas with new thought leaders. So pretty excited to be a part of that.

Then I think each one's going to have a follow-on classroom. If it's something that you're interested in, you can dive deeper in with that person and speaker. So hope to see everyone this year at the No-Till Conference. In addition to the good information, it's good to be able to get back together with friends. It's essentially a no-till reunion too.

Mike Lessiter:

Where'd that idea come from for this whole TED Talk?

Monte Bottens:

We talked about it a little bit, and we had designed that idea, just copying TED, TED Talks. So it's like TED Talks for agriculture, and we'd done that with our Ag Emerge conferences that we held prior to COVID, and it worked really great, and farmers liked that format, kept them engaged.

One thing I liked is when you're asking in a lot of these speakers that you've seen, they've kind of all got this canned one hour presentation that works really well, but then all of a sudden when you ask them to get to a 15 minute or 17 minute, they have to rethink and rewrite everything. So the nice part about you doing it, Lessiter Group doing it here at the no-till conference is you're guaranteeing that they'll have fresh content.

John Dobberstein:

Today, I have with me Pam Marrone, who is executive chair and co-founder of Invasive Species Corporation, and she will be a keynote speaker at the National No-Tillage Conference. Pam, just to lead in, how would you describe the state of biologicals in the ag industry now compared to where it was five or 10 years ago?

Pam Marrone:

Well, biologicals are now mainstream. So five or 10 years ago, they were emerging, but now the size of the market is such that it's about 10% of the total crop protection market. So that's getting pretty sizable. It's in several billion dollars, so that's where we're at now.

John Dobberstein:

In your talk, what's happening in biologicals for pest management and plant health, what are some of the key points that you'll be looking to share with attendees during that talk?

Pam Marrone:

If you look at the innovation in biologicals, there's about 70 to 80 new active ingredients for crop protection going through the EPA and only about eight or nine new synthetic chemicals. So that means that there's going to be many fewer chemicals, as we know, on the market, and that will be replaced by biologicals. So by 2040, the biologicals market will be as big as the chemical market if you look at the growth of the biologicals and the growth of the chemicals, so they'll cross over.

But that said, about half of all farmers in surveys that I've seen around the globe continuously always says that about 50% of all farmers still don't know anything about biologicals, are not aware of them, don't know how to use them, and if they have heard of them, are not competent in using them. So there's still a lot of work to figure out how to educate farmers and how to properly use biologicals because they have very different modes of action than chemicals.

John Dobberstein:

So I know at the No-Till Conference, you'll be moderating our first-ever Shark Tank-style presentations on new products from ag entrepreneurs, and you're going to be moderating that session. We're really excited about that. Tell me a little bit about the importance of entrepreneurs in the ag industry and how important they are to the development of new technologies that farmers can use.

Pam Marrone:

Yeah, there's still many big problems to solve. Yeah, so the innovation is coming from the startups and the entrepreneurs. The big companies have said, "That's not what we do well." So we'll fund through our corporate venture capital startups. Then when the startups de risk themselves and show that they have something promising, then the big companies buy the startups. That's the ecosystem that's happening now.

So since most of the innovation is coming from startups, the startups are really critical to keeping that innovation going.

John Dobberstein:

Right. Great, great. For people, attendees, and aren't very familiar with your position at Invasive Species Corporation, tell me a little bit about that company and what you guys do.

Pam Marrone:

Well, I'm a serial entrepreneur, and this is my fourth startup in the biological space. Invasive Species Corporation started up to spin out a product for controlling invasive mussels, zebra, quagga, and now golden mussels in water. But then we started our discovery program for attacking weeds. So we're really focusing on a bioherbicide, and that's our main priority of the company right now in addition to controlling the invasive mussels.

John Dobberstein:

Wow, that sounds very fascinating. I know you've been in the industry a long time, and we're really excited to have you at the conference. I've been wanting to bring you in for a number of years, and we're really great, really glad to have you. So-

Pam Marrone:

Well, I'm excited about giving an update on biologicals. There's a lot happening. It's a very dynamic, fast-moving industry.

John Dobberstein:

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Pam, it's pleasure talking with you and we're looking forward to having you on stage at the 34th annual No-Till Conference.

For the latest deals on registration and hotel rooms at the National No-Tillage Conference, please go to notillconference.com and check it out now.

Pam Marrone:

Great to be there. See you soon.

Noah Newman:

We are joined by John Fulton from the Ohio State University for another National No-Tillage Conference preview. John, we are very excited to have you at the conference this year. You're going to be giving a general session presentation about the latest cutting edge precision technologies and where no-till fits into that landscape.

So for people who have never seen a John Fulton presentation, what can they expect from you?

John Fulton:

Well, I think we're going to talk a lot about some of the most recent innovations that farmers in particular or consultants in some cases can really utilize. That could be at a dealership, retailer level to those providing precision ag services. But what's out there today, but also we're going to be talking about some of the things that are near future as well in terms of we're starting to see glimpses of some of these technologies, maybe not quite commercialized, but they're coming pretty quick.

Noah Newman:

Now, I'm sure you'll touch on drones, AI, autonomy. These are all the hot words right now, the smart sprayers of the world. In your experience working with farmers and some of the on farm trials that you're doing with the university, what's one new product or new technology or new practice that you've seen really giving farmers a lot of bang for their buck?

John Fulton:

Well, speaking here on the Eastern corn belt in particular, drone application is brought in. That's a fairly newer tool. Obviously, it's been around here for what, about four years, but we just see an uptick of utilization of that. I think it's helping farmers to be more efficient in some ways, more timely in particular in terms of applications. Then we're seeing, obviously, some profit margins out of that. So that's exciting.

I think the other one that's pretty hot, and I think we're really at an early stage, but the last two years, we've really seen it come into commercialization as targeted spraying and where that may fit or does it fit, I think those are some of the questions that the growers are going through right now. Obviously, I think there's some situations where, yeah, it makes pretty good sense today and maybe not quite for other growers in terms of what practices they're using today and how they're managing their crops.

Noah Newman:

Yeah, we read a lot about these technologies, but you have examples of how they're being used in the real world on real farms. Can you tell us a little bit about the eFields on-farm research that you do and how you might incorporate that into your presentation at the No-Till Conference?

John Fulton:

Yeah, that's a great question, Noah. So our eFields report is something we publish annually. Basically, it's a culmination of all the field scale research that we're conducting typically, well, directly with growers across Ohio, and we evaluate anything from agronomic type responses to doing some of these technologies, the drones, targeted spraying, et cetera, but basically kind of showcasing where maybe some of the ROI exists or maybe some of the... It does not really work that well in certain situations.

So that eField's bringing that real world results, both yield a lot of times, but even profitability into that really helps growers see how it's fitting in or not right there at the farm level.

Noah Newman:

Yeah. How much do you enjoy going to conferences like the No-Till Conference where you get to interact with all these growers who are ahead of the curve and conservation-minded?

John Fulton:

Well, it's always exciting to get to visit with everyone. You could argue sometimes the biggest bang for buck for a conference is just the networking, but just catching up with people. I mean, as you know, we're in a very unique situation now. I would almost describe it maybe one that we haven't seen in agriculture as far as producing crops and listening to people, talking to people, networking, and trying to take that back for us and trying to share that with our growers and do research to help them, that's very important for us and this conference really gives that opportunity.

Noah Newman:

All right. Well, it's an honor to be joined by a No-Till Living Legend, John Bradley here for a preview of the upcoming National No-Tillage Conference. John, you've been helping no-tillers, just thousands of no-tillers over the years earn big payoffs with no-till. So we're excited to have you at the conference once again. I know you can go in a lot of different directions with your presentation, but just what are some key points you hope to touch on and some key takeaways you expect attendees to go home with?

John Bradley:

I'd like to start out with kind of a history of no-till cotton. Of course, we were doing other crops, but cotton was a real challenge on the beginning. I even had somebody challenge me, said, "Well, the corn, soybeans, and wheat are fine, but I don't think you will ever do cotton." So it kind of gave me the idea of, "Let's see what the barriers are." That's the way I've always approached things in a positive way, but not to make it work, address the barriers.

Weed control was a big one then, and equipment, we went down through the list of anything that we thought could come up was a barrier, but it's been very, very gratifying to see a concept and a practice like no-till come to fruition after all these years. There's not many people can have a career and contribute to it and then see it actually be a hugely successful thing, especially with farmers who are very conservative, very skeptical, they don't like change and to change their farming practice to the degree that all of us have has just been very gratifying and amazing to me.

Noah Newman:

You talked about farmers being skeptical of no-till. You've heard some say, "No-till, no yield" is one of the myths out there you hear, but what are some other common misconceptions about no-till?

John Bradley:

Oh, well, the yield was the first thing. Then the "eye farm ugly" thing, that it's not eye-appealing to most people. I've had a lot of negative, really tough situations come up in meetings, not only locally in West Tennessee there, but all across. I've been told to get my hillbilly butt back to Tennessee that it's not going to work where we are and things like that, but it just made me more determined.

Then the number of people and the kinds of people that you meet of all the meetings, and I'm going to, not to glorify me, but literally thousands of meetings that I've done, I've always found somebody, a lot of them are meetings and I've always found somebody that's interested.

After the meeting, two or three will come up and says, and this is in places like Arizona, California, and I can talk about that, applying is really traditional and they're interested. "Will you help me try it? "So never did I have a meeting that somebody wasn't wanting to learn more about it and to try it, which has been very gratifying also.

Noah Newman:

Yeah. When you think about the No-Till Conference, which you've been to a couple times, as you said, you've spoken at several different events and put together several different PowerPoint presentations and we'll be putting together a new one for this conference. What is it about the No-Till Conference that makes you have to market on your calendar and one that really excites you?

John Bradley:

Well, everybody's interested. They're there to focus. Most of them have one or two, maybe more, but at least one or two things that they want to clarify, that they want to try. They want to get other people's opinion. I think there's two or three things that make it so successful. You all are great leaders in it, but you merge academic and you emerge that with farmers and practical and applied.

All of it is very practical and applied. It's not, as we might say, rocket science, but they talked to other people and share. There's new products introduced. I know I'd gotten a lot of questions to conference the last one I went to in St. Louis about snails and slugs, and I had my list of sessions that I wanted to go to and went to that one and got answers. No farming method is perfect, but there's always seems to still be things arising and no-till, as well as conventional. They were having snails and slugs and conventional also.

One of the main things that I've learned that people often thought when I did a lot of meetings that I was telling them, and I tried not to do this, but they had the attitude or impression that I was given that everything they had done was all wrong through history, and I had to really watch that. I said, it was new and exciting, but I didn't want to ever convey that what they were doing is "wrong." This is just a different way to accomplish the same thing and all the benefits that you read.

Noah Newman:

Well said. Well, we're looking forward to having you there. If you want to get a sneak peek at some of the sessions on the docket, the program is out notillconference.com right now.

John Bradley:

Went over it yesterday online.

Noah Newman:

Oh, you did? Oh, great.

John Dobberstein:

Well, that's it for the special edition of the No-Till Farmer Podcast, where we shared all the exciting opportunities for those who will attend the National No-Tillage Conference January 6th through the 9th in St. Louis.

Again, use the promo code POD, P-O-D to get additional savings on the cost of registration, and just a reminder that the room block rate for the hotel expires after December 23rd, so get your reservations in now.

On behalf of No-Till Farmer Magazine, I'm John Duberstein. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you in St. Louis.