We’re back from the 34th National No-Tillage Conference, and what an inspiring week it was in St. Louis with hundreds of conservation-minded farmers from all over the world. Let’s recap the action.

It all started with a pair of pre-conference workshops led by a trio of No-Till Innovators in Kris Nichols, Phil Needham and Bill Lehkmuhl. That set the tone for an action-packed conference, which included over 12 general sessions, 25 classrooms, 40 roundtables and hours of networking with fellow farmers, educators and title sponsors. We also had our first ever No-Till Ted Talks session. And congrats to Soil Action for winning the inaugural No-Till Shark Tank competition. The Super Bowl of no-till once again delivered moneymaking insights to no-till veterans and first-time attendees.  

Carrie Vollmer-Sanders: “This is my first time here at NNTC and it’s been eye-opening. I wasn’t sure what I was getting into. But everywhere I look there’s a farmer with a different experience, setup or system to talk with or ask questions to. I farm, so I know some things about no-till and cover crops, but there are so many different things that I didn’t think about. Yesterday we learned about tire pressure and how that impacts the timeline it takes for a seed to come up out of the ground and how that impacts yield. I hadn’t thought about that before.”

Rodney Rulon: “There’s been so much data shared within a short amount of time it’s been really exciting and I have 10 pages of notes probably that I’m going to have to pour through. A lot of exciting things to think about both in our overall philosophy of how we do things, and some very specific technology things, exciting new cover crops, new closing systems and all those things (we’ve learned about) already (in less than a day).” 

Clare Lindahl: “This is my first NNTC, and it’s been awesome. I’m here to listen to farmers. The people that we serve who are the conservation professionals supporting farmers to adopt practices like regenerative ag, soil health practices. They’re always telling me that they want to know more about how they can serve farmers better. So, this has been a good experience to just listen, and hear what the challenges are, what the barriers are and how I can take that back to them to better support farmers.”

Watch the full version of this episode of Conservation Ag Update.