One of our jobs is to apply fall strip-till treatments, or as we call it, Nutri-Till.

The trend in fertilizer application today is to go larger to cover more acreage, provide more flexibility of applications and be more precise, according to manufacturers interviewed at the 2010 Farm Progress Show.

Barge design and positioning affect efficient movement on the Mississippi River. But when aging infrastructure brings barges to a standstill for as long as 12 hours, all the design in the world can't save what amounts to $100 million in delay-related costs. If the U.S. is going to move twice as much grain to market 20 or 30 years from now, we'll need to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to update the river's ancient system of locks.

Strip-till advocates say deep-banding fertilizer in strips benefits corn, while others say the benefits come from tilling the strip and not fertilizer placement. Ontario researchers studied fall strip-till vs. applying starter fertilizer with a corn planter.

Farmers are starting to overcome some misperceptions about cover crops, which include the myths that they cost too much and aren't profitable, an Ohio State University Extension educator says