Traveling from as far as Australia and South Africa, nearly 1,000 no-tillers made the trek to St. Louis in January to learn how to further improve their no-till practices and celebrate the 25th anniversary of the National No-Tillage Conference.

Attendance for the “Gateway to the West” hit 950, with 435 first-time attendees. No-tillers from seven countries outside of the U.S. were present at the event.

The editors of No-Till Farmer have rounded up some of the best ideas, tips and lessons shared from the seven general sessions, 24 classrooms and three panels that were presented over the course of 3 days. The 2018 conference is slated for Jan. 9-12 in Louisville, Ky.

Cover Crop Lessons

Since adding cover crops to his system, Johnny Hunter has witnessed the benefits and challenges they present.

One of the first benefits the Dexter, Mo., no-tiller saw after just one year of no-till and cover crops was his water infiltration, which he estimates improved by 100%.

He also discovered cereal rye is great for controlling pigweed. He explains there was a field that had been in continuous cotton for about 16 years and became infested with the weeds. But after 1 year of seeding cereal rye, he saw a dramatic difference.

“What percentage of pigweed reduction? I don’t know,” Hunter says. “I know after the first year I grew cover crops and no-till, I planted non-GMO soybeans on that sucker and it was a pretty clean farm.”

He also likes using turnips as a cover…