No-till fertility management and herbicide rotation have saved Downing, Wis., multi-tasker Bill Hurtgen time and money. All are nuggets the relatively new farmer picked up attending a night class at his local technical college.

No-tillers need to pay attention to the extra phosphorus, zinc and other nutrients that corn rootworm-resistant (CRW) hybrids use compared to biotech hybrids without the CRW trait, says Fred Below, University of Illinois plant physiologist.

Like many no-tillers, Archer Ruffin believes in the value of micronutrients like zinc to get no-tilled corn off to a good start. But it may come as a surprise that Ruffin applies zinc in a two-pronged approach when planting corn.

One of my first jobs out of college after I received a degree in business from the University of North Dakota was a fortunate choice. During the several years I worked for a professional consulting agronomist, I had the opportunity to see a lot of different crop-production systems throughout eastern Nebraska, western Iowa and northeastern Kansas.

No-tillers should not be too quick to blame weather and the other usual culprits for struggling, diseased crops.

There was a time when manure was the chief fertilizer on farms. It helped the crops grow, but was eventually replaced by technologically advanced, high-grade fertilizers.