The rapid rise in the cost of seed and fertilizer in the past year served as a wake-up call for no-tillers, reminding them that controlling input costs is often the difference between being profitable or not.

When I shared our no-till experiences at the 2004 National No-Tillage Conference, we had just made a serious shift from a corn-soybean rotation to continuous corn. After 5 years, we’ve learned a lot about growing corn on corn. Now we’re evaluating new technology that will take our strip-till operation to the “next level,” as I reported in Indianapolis during the 2009 event.