New techniques are proving the importance of corn plant population to soil-based nitrogen management as no-tillers seek to get the most profit out of each acre.

It used to be that the primary task of a corn head was to harvest corn: separate the ear from the stalk with as little grain loss as possible, while collecting as little trash as possible, says Marion Calmer, a no-till farmer with Calmer Corn Heads in Alpha, Ill. But as growers look to better integrate field operations, the corn head is playing an increasingly important role in managing crop residue as well.

We’ve heard about contest yields that sounded unbelievable — and for most of us were generally unachievable.

The shift to continuous no-tilling on our farm has more or less followed the development of planting equipment suited to this method of farming. Rock County, Wis., which borders northern Illinois, is the top soybean producing county in the state.

A recent article in No-Till Farmer cautioned that growers should kill ryegrass cover crops before they get taller than 2 feet.

The first time I saw what Dwayne Beck was doing on the irrigation research farm near Redfield, S.D. (before he developed the Dakota Lakes Research Farm), I knew we were on the verge of a new type of crop production in our area.

Jim Koepke would be the first to tell you that he doesn’t consider himself a no-tiller. “There’s plenty of tillage activity going on in our soils, it’s just that the tillage is being done by earthworms instead of iron,” he says. “And those earthworms do a tremendous job.”

At least four emerging trends could be spotted at the Farm Progress Show, the annual display of farm equipment and services held for 3 days this summer near Decatur, Ill.