If the weather has cooperated and you've avoided equipment breakdowns, hopefully your crops are in the ground.

David Hula captured top no-till yield honors in last fall’s National Corn Growers Association contest with a yield of 319.3 bushels per acre. While this Charles City, Va., no-tiller’s result was about double the current national average, 300 bushels is a yield some industry leaders are anticipating as being typical just 20 years from now.

For Mike Guetterman, who farms 7,000 no-till acres with his father and brothers, small details make a big difference in the success of a continuous no-till program.

Can saving money now on fertilizer pay off down the road or are you better off spending a little extra money to see better results in your no-tilled fields?

While Francis Childs certainly doesn’t no-till, the Manchester, Iowa, farmer uses a number of ideas some ideas that you could use in your own no-tilling operation. Using a mini moldboard plow that works the soil up to 14 inches deep yet still leaves up to 40 percent soil cover from his extremely heavy continuous corn plant residue, he harvested an amazing 442.1 bushels of corn per acre last fall. For the sixth straight year, he took top honors in the 2002 National Corn Growers Association National Corn Yield Contest.