A new fertilizer additive designed to protect granular or liquid nitrogen applications from leaching and volatilization for an entire growing season is being marketed by Specialty Fertilizer Products.
Ray McCormick has been profitably growing corn on corn without the disease and insect outbreaks that threaten to keep many no-tillers in their standard rotations.
Ray McCormick earns a living through good land stewardship. He operates a peach orchard, maintains about 1,000 acres of woods on his property and builds wetlands and mitigation sites for other landowners.
Few, if any, farmers were spared the sticker shock of rising costs of fuel, fertilizer and ag chemicals in the past 16 months. But the reality is these costs have been steadily increasing for a decade or more as shown in Fig. 1.
The yield-robbing effects of soil compaction continue to be a major challenge for growers, but proponents of deep-tilling say they have an answer for returning compacted soils to fertile, highly productive acres.
Vertical tillage is described as a system of soil management that promotes root development. It's also sometimes called "soiling" or zone tillage because it's used to fracture the entire soil profile from the bottom up using specially designed vertical tillage tools. According to the Precision Planting Co., each tillage pass is designed to increase the vertical flow of nutrients, water and developing roots. Tillage points of the tools work to “heave” the entire section of earth from just below the line that separates topsoil from subsoil.
Once considered a radical cropping system, no-tilling continued its climb into the mainstream this year. News headlines noted the surging number of growers jumping into no-tilling to escape from skyrocketing fuel and fertilizer prices.
Mindful of an emerging trend, an agricultural engineer offers guidelines to thoughtful decision-making for no-tillers thinking about leaping into monoculture corn.
Before Paul Jasa will even discuss no-till continuous corn, he issues a strong warning about monoculture farming. The highly respected University of Nebraska extension agricultural engineer has worked for more than 30 years “preaching” a systems approach to no-till, including crop rotation.
Bob Myers believes in twin-row corn. By no-tilling corn in twin rows, 6 inches apart on 30-inch centers, Myers has been able to push his corn yields to more than 200 bushels per acre.
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On this episode of Conservation Ag Update, brought to you by Martin-Till, precision specialist Chad Baker, co-owner of Baker Precision Planter Works in Orangeville, Ill., helps a first-generation no-tiller with planter setup, and later encounters a couple problems with a strip-tiller’s new 24-row planter. Plus, veteran agronomist Brad Forkner checks in with a couple tips for farmers to keep in mind before they take the field.
Needham Ag understands the role of technology in making better use of limited resources within a specific environment by drawing on a wealth of global experience to overcome the challenges facing today's farmers, manufacturers and dealers.
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