Holtwood, Pa.-based grower and veteran cover crop coach Steve Groff announces new enhancements this year to Cover Crop Innovators, an online educational resource for cover crop education and management.

It’s not so difficult to do seeding rate trials with today’s planting equipment and yield monitors, and it’s even possible to do several of these within a field in order to get an idea of how much responses vary within the field. The difficulty is that responses within parts of a field are not consistent across years: they are often more dependent on weather conditions than on soil zone or soil type.

Soil biology plays a key role in building healthy soils, providing nutrients to crops and naturally controlling some soil-borne pests and diseases. It is difficult to assess the soil biological properties in a lab, but the PLFA test serves as a good indicator of soil microbial communities.

In search of higher yields, many producers aim to plant soybeans early in the season. When considering this practice, there are two diseases to be mindful of: Sudden death syndrome (SDS) and Pythium root rot (PRR).

In this episode of the No-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by Montag Manufacturing, Casey Seymour of Moving Iron LLC sits down with Kristen Nichols of Hemp Industry Daily for an overview of the hemp industry and the opportunities in agriculture.

Temperature inversions are common during the growing season, and knowing how to tell if one is likely to occur may help prevent Dicamba damage on susceptible plants and crops, say researchers at the University of Missouri. Find out what their research reveals about how wind speed, cloud cover, obstructions and other factors affect temperature inversions.

Data from the Census of Agriculture 2017 show a stable-but-growing number of farms no-tilling, big growth in reduced tillage, along with 15 million acres of cover crops seeded — up 49% since 2012.

It's never a bad idea to revisit planter-maintenance basics ahead of spring planting, which Mark Hanna from Iowa State University Extension shares in this article with a special mention about no-till and reduced-tillage conditions.

The next deadline for Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) applications to be considered for funding in fiscal year 2019 is May 10, 2019. The NRCS plans to invest up to $700 million for new enrollments and contract extensions in fiscal year 2019.