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.

Mike Starkey doesn't have a problem investing dollars in fertilizer to push up yields. But the trained accountant and veteran no-tiller from Brownsburg, Ind., certainly expects a favorable return on his nutrient investment.

Few, if any, farmers were spared the sticker shock of rising costs of fuel, fertilizer and ag chemicals in the past 16 months. But the reality is these costs have been steadily increasing for a decade or more as shown in Fig. 1.

While the winners in the annual National Corn Yield Contest sponsored by the National Corn Growers Association do everything they can to harvest top yields, they certainly don’t skimp on nutrients.

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.