We’re looking forward to seeing some numbers roll in this fall!We’re looking forward to seeing some numbers roll in this fall!If you’re looking for ways to wring more profit from no-till, the answers might be closer than you think: Your own farm.

To help you unlock the secrets to increased profitability, No-Till Farmer and Alpha, Ill., no-tiller Marion Calmer announced a new program, “The No-Till Yardstick,” that encourages no-tillers to do more onfarm research and share the results with others.

Both the magazine and Calmer will pay registration fees to the 2013 National No-Tillage Conference for up to 10 no-tillers who send in results on new projects started this year. Our plan is to share results at future conferences and in No-Till Farmer.

Any research topic is fair game for “The No-Till Yardstick,” as long as it’s relevant to no-till. Some examples could would be studies of nitrogen-use efficiency, cover-crop benefits or soybean population studies.

No-tillers often tell us that the best indicator of a product’s or practice’s usefulness is to see how it performs on their own farm, rather than relying on off-the-farm research results or sorting out benefits touted by manufacturers.

That’s why this project is so important. Nobody knows your fields better than you, and the advent of guidance systems, planting devices, scales and yield monitors — paired with common sense — makes onfarm research much easier to conduct.

Calmer says managing the extensive research plots on his farm requires only one extra day in the fall and spring. Last year, the research activity netted him an extra $50,000 in profits.

We’re strongly encouraging no-tillers to participate in this project. To provide some help, we’ve set up a special page on our Web site with more information and resources to get questions answered.