With government officials from the European Union objecting to the use of no-till and forest land as no-till carbon sinks, the U.S. recently made concessions in this area for reducing carbon dioxide losses into the atmosphere. This action took place during a recent meeting of worldwide government officials seeking approval of the international Kyoto Protocol treaty to curb climate change.

David Wipf learned a lot about precision corn planting last year, thanks to the Computrol II Monitor that he won at the 2000 National No-Tillage Conference. Wipf, crops manager at the Fairview Colony near LaMoure, N.D., directs production on 2,500 acres of no-till corn and soybeans.

For the first time ever, no-till acres in the United States have broken the 50 million acre mark. The results shown in the No-Till-Age chart at left indicate farmers no-tilled 50,787,792 acres last year.

Because a number of No-Till Farmer readers tell us that they often run into difficulties when no-tilling, we asked Howard Martin to address possible solutions to what he sees as the nine toughest no-till corn planting problems.

Ever think that you could be no-tilling record yields in every field on your farm? Researchers at Texas A&M University say harvesting the equivalent of record yields every year from every field will not only be possible in the future, but they believe the means of doing so are already being developed.

After starting in 1972, one of the first questions our editors asked seed companies concerned which varieties and hybrids were most suited for no-till. It’s a question we’ve continued to ask for 28 years as most companies have been reluctant to run the specialized cold tolerance tests that are essential in identifying these varieties and hybrids.

“We're all looking for more profit per acre,” says Kent Krukewitt, “and that’s my incentive for growing value-added crops.”

While the temperature may be brisk, fall seeding has definitely paid off for Saskatchewan no-tiller Gerry Willerth.

With the dawning of the new millennium, no-tillers certainly didn’t disappoint anyone when it comes to including new ideas in their farming practices.