When it comes to calculating seeding rates for no-tilled Roundup Ready soybeans, recent University of Maryland research indicates that you may not need as high a plant population as you might have thought to get top yields.

With fewer new herbicides coming on the market each year, no-tillers are paying much closer attention to developing more effective weed-management plans. As a result, no-tillers are intently studying how various herbicide and tankmix combinations perform in their fields.

The temperatures are turning slightly colder but the No-Till Farmer message board, Farmer’s Forum, is starting to heat up. This month no-tillers tapped away at their keyboards and started discussions about ridding their fields of volunteer trees, powering their no-till planters and many more hot topics within the no-tilling world.

In mid-March, Syngenta Crop Production filed a civil suit in Federal District Court against Monsanto in response to what they believe are false and misleading claims dealing with a comparison of Roundup and Touchdown herbicides.

In recent weeks, a number of questions and answers concerning no-till wheat have popped up on the No-Till Farmer Web site’s Online Forum. This highly popular exchange of ideas is located at www.no-tillfarmer.com and offers plenty of valuable information on all aspects of no-tilling.

Back in 1997, a number of Michigan farmers found high levels of white mold disease in their soybeans. This was especially true in fields planted with Roundup Ready soybeans where weeds were controlled with Roundup Ultra herbicide.

Brian Freed recommends adding ammonium sulfate in your herbicide spray solution and having it fully dissolved with water before adding Roundup. His no-till clients also use Array.

Following the expiration of the patents covering glyphosate, Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide may be facing numerous price threats. At least 17 glyphosate products from nine companies are on the market this spring for use by no-tillers.

No-Tilling soybeans ahead of corn may not be for everyone. But in some Corn Belt regions, however, yield advantages combined with other benefits are attracting more interest in no-tilling beans as early as the last week of March.

For many no-tillers pesticide purchases constitute a major portion of their cash flow. A new system developed at Ohio State University (OSU) may be the solution to reducing pesticide costs that many no-tillers are looking for.