Last August, eight editors from No-Till Farmer and its sister publications descended on the Farm Progress Show grounds in Decatur, Ill., to uncover the newest farm equipment innovations in agriculture.

From planters to sprayers to precision technology, the roundup represented below of the best products our editors identified that could help no-tillers improve their operations and their bottom lines.

PLANTING/SEEDING

Dawn Equipment unveiled the Dawn ZRX Zone Roller, a cover-crop roller attachment that lets no-tillers plant into living cover crops. Discs in front push residue aside, followed by rollers to pull the vegetation away.

“A lot of times, after you run the planter through, the cover crops will want to fall back over and cover the path,” Dawn Equipment president Joe Bassett explains. “But the roller acts like a gauge wheel for the disc, providing really precise control.”

The roller flexes and follows the contour of the soil, allowing for good depth control, he adds. A limited number of the ZRX Zone Rollers will be made for a select group of customers for spring 2014.

Case IH introduced its Precision Disk 500 and 500T air drills.

The drills’ parallel linkage on the row unit maintain placement depth, and a variable compression spring offers reserve tension to maintain depth when in contact with hard soils, says Case IH marketing manager Rob Zemenchik.

This setup is ideal for cover crops, he says, as it handles a wide range of seed types and residue clearances. Additionally, the seed-delivery tubes face forward to place…