The amount of nitrogen lost to heavy rains depends on several factors, but the major one is the form of nitrogen applied, according to University of Kentucky Ag Extension.
Forty years ago this month, I made my first visit to USDA’s North Appalachian Experimental Watershed in Coshocton, Ohio. Established in 1935, this 1,047-acre facility had been built with depression-era labor from several government assistance programs.
Even though temperatures have cooled and rainfall has eased drought conditions in some parts of the Corn Belt, worries about drought conditions remain elsewhere.
Last week, I was finally able to hit the road to visit some farms and see what no-tillers have been up to this summer. I was also anxious to see, with my own eyes, how crops were doing during this historic drought.
Had Dave Nielsen simply accepted the early tales of frustration he heard, no-till might not have become the dominant practice on his dryland farm. Instead, he decided to place more trust in early no-till innovators and university experts in his area.
Source: Ohio State University, Purdue University Extension
After an April that brought record rainfall to much of Indiana and Ohio, climatologists agree the weather pattern is improving - a welcome change for farmers in both states.
One advantage proponents of no-till have championed for years is getting on their no-till fields without making ruts long before their neighbors in conventional tillage can run. Sometimes there's a day's difference after a heavy rain. As it turns out, that's a mixed blessing.
No-till has not only been better economically for Angela, Mont., farmer Alan Ballensky, the moisture protected by no-till has helped him raise yields that many would not deem possible in such a dry climate.
Alan Ballensky rolls his 4730 John Deere self-propelled sprayer to a stop in a cloud of dust at a field edge on his southeastern Montana small grains no-till operation.
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On this edition of Conservation Ag Update, brought to you by CultivAce, Gregg Sanford, Wisconsin Integrated Cropping Systems Trial manager, reveals how no-till is stacking up to other major systems in year 34 of the trial.
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