Seeding & Planting

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Focusing On Profit

Iowa grower came to no-tilling late and found that a simpler, smaller approach to farming made for bigger profits and more time for other things in life.
At age 68, John Everts has embraced no-till farming as a way to boost his per-acre profit, farm with less machinery and improve the soil.
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What I've Learned from No-Tilling

Milestones Mark Path To No-Till On Family Farm

Innovative terraces and early experiences with the benefits of residue-covered soil pointed to the advantages that no-tilling would deliver to the Wahling family acreage.D
OUR farm in southwestern Iowa has been a leader in soil conservation since the “dirty” 1930s. My father was one of the first individuals to install field terraces on our highly erodible land to slow water runoff and save the topsoil. We’ve kept a copy of the Des Moines Sunday Register from October 1968 that describes how Dad (Edgar Wahling) and I constructed the first push-up grassed-backslope terrace in the United States.
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Understanding Vertical Tillage

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.
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No-Till Twin-Row Cropping Continues Farming Evolution

Building on the benefits of conservation tillage, growers find additional advantages and yields from the twin-row system.
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.
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FRANKLY SPEAKING

Where Will We Steal More Acres For Corn?

Even if the current ethanol demand cools, growing export demand will fuel the move to more continuous corn acres.
While ethanol is the shining star behind expanding corn production, not everyone believes the long-range outlook is good for filling a huge amount of U.S. oil needs with crop-based energy. But if the ethanol demand cools off, increased export demand will certainly pick up the slack and solidify the demand for still more corn acres.
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