With plenty of unique experiences, four veteran no-tillers shared lots of valuable tips, tricks and techniques that you can put to good use. They were part of a panel that shared ideas with attendees at the 13th annual National No-Tillage Conference held in January in Cincinnati, Ohio.

The four no-tillers included:

• John McNabb of Pocatello, Idaho, who no-tills 7,500 acres of wheat and alfalfa and has 400 beef cows and runs 2,000 sheep. He has no-tilled as many as 45,000 acres of rented land at one time.
• Gary Sweet of Columbia Station, Ohio, no-tills and strip-tills 150 acres of sweet corn for the retail market near Cleveland. At one time, the family raised 2,500 acres of sweet corn for supermarkets, canneries and retail markets. Growing sweet corn since the 1880s, the family has also grown annual ryegrass as a cover crop for nearly 75 years.
• Guy Williams of Iowa City, Iowa, no-tills 1,500 acres of corn, soybeans, wheat and white corn with his father.
• Maury McLean of Lancaster, Wis., no-tills 550 acres of corn and soybeans and produces and markets honey mustard with his wife, Martha.

1. No-till plant roots must establish contact with fertilizer at an early stage of growth to achieve high yields.When no-till wheat plants first come up, they need to immediately reach fertilizer and develop roots that go down to available moisture.

—John McNabb

2. It pays to have a detailed 12-month no-till plan and be prepared for changes that can disrupt your original plan…