The 2004 Tobacco Buyout changed the face of the leaf industry in the U.S. forever, drastically reducing the number of small farms with widely spread “quota” plantings and giving rise to several concentrated areas of significantly larger-scale tobacco fields.

When it comes to the form and function areas of sprayers, spray booms play a critical role in dispersing chemicals an efficient, accurate manner to control weeds or fertilize crops.

When Roger Black switched to no-tilling in south-central Kansas more than two decades ago, he was searching for ways to reduce erosion in his silty-loam bottomland fields, as well as reduce fuel and labor costs.

The corn and soybean rotation has been a winner for many no-tillers in the Midwest and Northeast for years. While some still encounter frustrating planting conditions in heavy corn residue, many find that years of no-till management have led to systems that make planting soybeans into corn stalks effective and routine.

Given today’s wide variety of expensive crop protectants and their various label requirements — along with ever-changing, penalty-laden regulatory mandates aimed at controlling drift — it’s no wonder no-tillers and applicators search for that one nozzle that will do the best job on their sprayer.

Aside from the planter and combine, drills are one of the most common pieces of equipment seen rolling across no-till fields today — about 64% of readers who participated in the 2016 No-Till Operational Benchmark Study said they own and use a no-till drill. And with cover crops picking up acreage in no-till systems, no-tillers are no longer relying on the tool just for seeding cash crops.

Harold Grall already had extensive experience growing corn and grain sorghum in the Texas Panhandle when he bought out his mentor, Dale Coleman, and started farming on his own in 1994. At that time, he was farming 3,700 acres of High Plains silt-clay loam just north of Dumas, Texas, and was committed to ridge-till and furrow irrigation.

Kentucky grower Richard Preston says his operation represents the “worst-case scenario” for efficiently and responsibly sprayed chemicals.