On this episode of Conservation Ag Update, brought to you by Sound Agriculture, planter expert Clay Scott gives no-tillers 5 action items to tackle before taking the field this spring. The Precision Planting field support specialist also explains why he tells farmers to plant no more than 10 acres on the first day of planting season.

Walnut, Ill., strip-tiller Alan Madison steps into the Farmer Feature spotlight and shares his keys to high yields and healthy soils.

In the Cover Crop Connection, Greensburg, Ind., no-tillers Roger and Nick Wenning explained how they started planting cover crops before most people even knew what a cover crop was.

Later in the episode, Bryan Young, professor of weed science at Purdue University, shares how no-tillers can diversify their weed management toolbox for better success against herbicide-resistant weeds. And in the Video of the Week, Environmental Tillage Systems unveils its new Cover Crop Applicator.

This episode of Conservation Ag Update is brought to you by Sound Agriculture.

Sound Agriculture delivers bioinspired solutions that enrich soil and improve crops. Our synergistic products empower growers to achieve success while minimizing environmental impact.

SOURCE® activates the soil microbiome, unlocking nutrients for crops through advanced chemistry. BLUEPRINT™ offers the highest-quality arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), extending root systems to improve nutrient and water access.

Beyond our products, Sound leads the way with programs that support growers in adopting sustainable practices to reduce reliance on synthetic fertilizers while maintaining productivity and profitability.

 

TRANSCRIPT

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Planter Maintenance Checklist: 5 Action Items

Happy March Madness, welcome to CAU! Hard to believe some of you might already be planting when our next episode airs in early April! I figured now is a great time for some last-minute planter maintenance tips from our good friend, Clay Scott.

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He’s a field support specialist for Precision Planting. Clay’s 5 action items — Make sure your boxes are cleaned out, your meters, openers, seed tube guards and drive chains are good to go. He’s a big believer in replacing drive chains every year. Also, make sure your seed firmers have the right tension on them. And when it comes time to plant, Clay says don’t go too crazy on the first day, just in case there are some gremlins lurking. 

“Do not go out the first day of 2025 and think, ‘Man, I am going to set the world on fire. I'm going to go plant 200 acres today,’ or whatever your number is a good day. Do not go out there thinking that. I want you guys to plant 10 acres your first day of 2025 because I want more time out of the cab than I want in the cab. Right? That first day, maybe we have done our planter maintenance. We've gone through, we've took every nut and bolt loose, we've painted, we've done everything. Maybe we missed some stuff, right? Maybe things didn't get tight. Maybe we didn't get something shimmed right. Maybe we need to tighten some things up. So that first day of 2025, I want to make sure. Let's slow down. Let's pump the brakes. Let's get out of the cab and check things.”

For more details on Clay’s 5 action items, we included a link to his No-Till Conference session in the episode article on No-TillFarmer.com.

Farmer Feature: Alan Madison, Walnut, Ill.

Time now to visit with a true conservation innovator. Walnut, Ill, farmer Alan Madison started promoting no-till and strip-till decades ago during his 30-year run with the NRCS.

Today, he strip-tills 100% of his corn and soybeans. He follows 8 steps to achieve high yields and strip-till success, which includes broadcasting cereal rye on all 2,000 of his acres immediately after harvest with this pendulum spreader.  

“The cover crop, seeing that cover crop in there, it does help that compaction. So that can work for you. We're using starter. We've used starter for 40 years on the planter, looking at at least somehow getting maybe 20 units or 30 units of nitrogen (N) out there and some zinc is a key component.

“And then there's a lot of other things you can put with that to maybe help improve it somewhat. And then make sure your planter is set up with the right row cleaners and disc openers and closing wheels and those kinds of things. And there's a lot of information out there on how to set up planters. And then of course we kind of spoonfeed N, so we're putting some on with the planter. We might put some on with our herbicides and then side dressing. And if we have to, we actually do some Y-drops later in the season.”

The final thing on Alan’s checklist is to harvest early, usually around the last week of September, so that heavy residue can start breaking down into the soil before he makes his strips in early November.

Planting Cover Crops Before Anyone Knew What a Cover Crop Was

Well, this week we kicked off the 6th annual National Cover Crop Summit which featured more than half a dozen presentations from a variety of great speakers covering several different cover crop related topics. But if you missed out on the sessions, we’ve got you covered. You can still sign up to gain access to all of this year’s sessions as well as more than 40 sessions from past years — and you’ll have an entire year to view them at your convenience. Here’s just one clip of a session from this year. Check out father-son farming duo Roger & Nick Wenning as they explain how they started planting cover crops before they even knew what a cover crop was. 

“I actually started back, I guess in the mid ‘80s. I didn’t know it was cover crops because we didn’t know what a cover crop was. But I have a lot of rolling ground and I got tired of watching my soil wash down into the creek. So I started contour planting weed around them and up and down all the little gullies, using them for erosion control — worked beautifully. Well, then I started noticing, we tried no-tilling in it then too and there were a few guys in the county no-tilling. Cover crops, nobody had heard of so we were on our own there. But I had a couple guys to talk to and we worked on some no-tilling and even early on I noticed that the ground was a little more mellow — we could get a stand. Because otherwise those hills over the years had eroded and you worked it and just had clods about 2 inches — you’d drop your corn in and wait for rain and hope maybe some of it would come up. But we just noticed the ground was more mellow.”

A fascinating cover crop origin story there from the Wennings. And that’s just one snippet of one presentation, so be sure to go to cover crop summit dot com to sign up for the Summit and hear the rest of their story as well as several other fascinating lessons, anecdotes, research summaries and more in the world of cover crops. Well that’s all for this week’s cover crop connection.

When Will Our Current Herbicides Stop Working?

Switching gears. Diversity is not just important for cover crops and rotations, but also for herbicides, says Bryan Young, professor of weed science at Purdue University. Young says no-tillers should diversify their toolbox for weed management because as he tells us here, some of our current herbicides might not even work in a few years. 

“I think by the end of this decade, there's a good chance there'll be some fields where the oxygen herbicides and glufosinate liberty don't work anymore on important species like palmer amaranth and waterhemp. I think that's pretty easily said because in some fields we already have one or maybe two of those herbicides that have stopped working. So now we're just relying on the other one, the third one to take us home the rest of the way. And I don't think it's going to last for six years. We don't have that much time, even if we practice good crop rotation and only apply it three more times. But there's a lot of herbicides we apply in our corn that we're also applying our soybeans today. And that's the other thing that we've done is if a herbicide worked in corn, we decided, well, why don't we use that in soybeans as another tool? So that's where we really aren't rotating away from some herbicides like we used to be able to when we had, let's just say non-GMO crops, pre 1996 after herbicide resistant crops, that's when we enabled a lot of herbicides to be used in corn and beans because they're good and effective. And why not use them well, it contributed a little bit towards herbicide resistance. Evolution is a good reason why we should not have.”

Young says a good place to start is by focusing on rotating post-emergent herbicides from year to year. 

Video of the Week: ETS Debuts Cover Crop Applicator

And moving on to our Video of the Week. Our John Dobberstein got the scoop on a brand-new innovation from ETS at Commodity Classic. It’s a cover crop seeder that can be used while making strips and applying fertilizer. Let’s check it out. 

“With all of the movement to increase cover crop acres across the U.S., we have a lot of customers asking about doing cover crops while making strip-till pass in the fall. This is a chance to be able to apply cover crops while you’re applying fertilizer and creating strips with your SoilWarrior.”

“The Cover Crop Applicator and tank system is mounted on the front of the SoilWarrior and it’s delivered through air to the rear of the machine. We have blockage sensors to make sure we do have consistent flow out of each of the tubes and then we do have multiple locations where we can apply the cover crops. Here, we’re showing it to be applied between the rows but we do have the ability to apply the cover crop directly into the strip, to make sure those cover crops establish and hold the soil after the strips are created. So we have the flexibility to set this up for whatever the customer wants to be doing.” 

That tank can hold up to 40 bushels of cover crops.

Remembering Lessiter Media Co-Founder Pam Lessiter

And before we go, we want to honor the life and legacy of Lessiter Media co-founder Pam Lessiter, who passed away March 8 after an unwavering 7-year battle with lung disease.

In March of 1981, Pam and her husband, Frank Lessiter bought No-Till Farmer, Farm Building News and the National Farm Building Show and founded our company — Lessiter Media. We wouldn’t be here without her. Pam was instrumental in keeping the business afloat through the ag recession of the 1980s and was credited as “ahead of her time” among chief financial officers in the niche-media world. Pam was a model of how business and an enormous heart for people can go hand-in-hand, and her impact is felt every day around these offices. Rest in Peace, Pam Lessiter. 

That’ll do it for this week. Got something you’d like to feature on the program? Shoot me an email at Nnewman@Lessiter Media.com. Thanks for tuning into Conversation Ag Update. Until next time, for more stories visit no-tillfarmer.com, striptillfarmer.com and covercropstrategies.com.