Co-sponsored by No-Till Farmer and Wall Street Access, the event’s goal was to help Wall Street fund managers better understand the food production cycle and this year’s challenging fertilizer markets.

It was a follow-up to a similar Ag Day event for Wall Street investment fund managers that we co-sponsored last summer that zeroed in on the ag equipment industry.

Clay Mitchell of Buckingham, Iowa; Jeff Martin of Mt. Pulaski, Ill.; and Ray McCormick of Vincennes, Ind., demonstrated why today’s no-till innovators are leading the pack when it comes to producing food. Other speakers representing the ag equipment, GPS and fertilizer industries included Matt Hays, Equipment Technologies (Apache sprayers), Mooresville, Ind.; Steve Koles, Hemisphere GPS, Calgary, Alberta; Bert Frost, CF Industries, Deerfield, Ill.; Gary Smith and Denny Addis, The Andersons, Maumee, Ohio; and Joe Ewing, Terra Industries, Sioux City, Iowa.

Here’s a brief look at a few of the ideas presented. Results from an exclusive late-winter No-Till Farmer fertilizer survey that was presented at the New York City meeting appeared on page 3 of the April issue.

1. RTK equipment offers sub-inch accuracy with our strip-till toolbar and planter and lets us drop corn in the center of the berm. Corn planted off to the side of the strip will emerge several days later and leads to a 3% yield loss. Planting directly on the strips yields an extra 7 bushels per acre. With $4 corn, that amounts to $131,600 more income with 4,700 acres of corn.

— Jeff Martin

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