With growing concerns about worldwide oil supplies, no-tillers have an excellent opportunity to help conserve a considerable amount of fuel. It’s crucial as global oil production should peak between 2005 and 2010 before beginning a long and slow descent.

New developments in recent years in regard to more effective weed and insect control have paid big dividends for Joe Alexandrowski.

If next spring’s planting season turns wet, Randall Reeder says no-tillers who use controlled traffic may be ahead of their neighbors. The Ohio State University agricultural engineer says it might let you no-till quicker despite wet conditions that normally delay planting.

With plenty of tough cropping decisions to be made before spring, every idea that you can use to no-till more efficiently is definitely worth finding.

If you’re looking for new ways to improve no-till seeding performance, check out the new Thompson closing wheel from Exapta Solutions. The company’s officials indicate this closing wheel offers superb furrow closing, ultra-low mud adhesion and unmatched durability when no-tilling.

If you’re no-tilling with an 8-row planter, you’ll be able to obtain a set of FREE positive placement metering kits (PPK) worth $400 at the early January National No-Tillage Conference. That’s because United Ag Products (UAP) is offering these kits that retail at $50 per row FREE to every attendee for controlling costly rodents.

With no-till used on 55 million acres, this highly popular reduced-tillage practice turned in a dramatic increase of nearly 3.2 million acres during the past 2 years.

Rather than causing major compaction concerns, Lloyd Murdock credits long-term no-till with being able to solve many of your more troublesome soil worries. That’s what the University of Kentucky soil scientist learned from a recent 5-year study that looked at no-till and soil compaction as reported in a recent Soybean Digest article.

By providing a much better understanding on why your no-till soils function like they do, just listening to Jill Clapperton and Dean Martens will make it worth your cost and time to attend the 11th annual National No-Tillage Conference being held Jan. 8 to 11, 2003, in Indianapolis, Ind.