How you manage your crop residues this fall can have a major impact on the profit of your 2009 crops.

Research from around the world clearly documents that yield losses occur as a result of equipment passes through the field. Yield reductions occur from either direct damage to the standing crop or from the compacting of the soil, or both.

Several St. Louis National No-Tillage Conference attendees who use GPS auto-steer systems raised the question of adding more GPS wizardry directly to drills, planters and sprayers for reducing costly side draft on steep slopes.

For more accurate seeding and spraying, a few no-tillers are already starting to believe that global positioning satellite systems should be placed in the ground — where it may count the most.

While most Corn Belt no-tillers grow only corn and soybeans, Charlie Hammer prefers a three-way rotation. The operator of Hammer & Kavazanjian Farms with his wife Nancy Kavazanjian at Beaver Dam, Wis., prefers a no-till rotation evenly split between corn, soybeans and wheat in the farm’s 2,300-acre operation.

With every new innovation that comes around to make our lives easier, there comes a price tag — usually a hefty one. And that rule of thumb is not set aside when it comes to auto-steering.