Given the high cost of applying pesticides in your fields today, replacement of worn nozzles is the best insurance against waste. The investment in a set of new spray nozzles is dwarfed by the cost of the chemicals being applied. But when should nozzles be replaced?

Anyone who heard me talk about my operation at the 2006 National No-Tillage Conference in St. Louis knows that I'm as close to paranoid about soil loss as a person can get.

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.

One of the best pieces of advice we got before shifting to continuous no-till is to get your fields in the best shape possible when making any major changes in your farming methods.

With expected Environmental Protection Agency approval later this summer of Roundup Ready alfalfa, no-tillers will have a exciting new tool to add to their management arsenal. Having proven valuable with soybeans, corn, cotton, canola and other crops, adding the Roundup Ready technology to alfalfa offers many new forage cropping opportunities.