Three decades of no-till, or “never till” as John Rigdon calls it, is certainly long enough to establish a tradition at Rigdon Farms, but that’s only part of the story.

In the not-so-distant future, farmers wanting to scout fields for diseases and pests, spot spray for weeds or obtain 3-D maps of their farm ground will be turning to tiny autonomous helicopters or planes to do the job.

With early season warmth, many no-tillers started planting very early this year. Now is a good time to go back and look at your planting calendar and begin to assess whether this early no-till planting worked for you or if waiting later to no-till may have been better.

Every youth that has heard stories of their parents walking to school uphill both ways in waist-deep snow knows that things were more difficult in the past.

Record-high 2008 corn and soybean prices arguably meant that a fungicide application — or any other input that nudged up yields — paid for itself and then some. But whether fungicides continue to be a tool that can be used profitably on a yearly basis as commodity prices settle is up for debate.