Pinnacle Crop Tech’s 11th Crop Health Workshop (Agronomy Essentials), on Jan. 25, 2016, will again teach and exchange ideas on improved methods for no-till cropping systems. This is a continuation of a series of workshops that provide an interactive setting (questions are encouraged) and putting practical agronomy information in the hands of farmers, agronomists and researchers from Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Colorado, Texas, the Dakotas, and the Canadian prairie provinces. Attendees often hail from as far away as Australia.  

Pinnacle is the freelance agronomy consultancy run by Matt Hagny, who has 22 years of experience dedicated exclusively to continuous no-till in Kansas, Oklahoma and farther abroad. The workshop will cover numerous topics, including:

• A look at the hard evidence for nitrogen (N) stabilizer additives
• What we know about N cycling in no-till and how to predict N requirements based on 2 years of crop history
• Best methods to apply N
• Additives for phosphorus fertilizers
• Role of seed quality, seed treatments and seed placement for no-till stand establishment
• Varying planting dates based on mulch cover and crop sequence
• Later-than-usual planting dates for corn
• Which herbicides fit certain roles as to effectiveness and crop safety
• Coping with herbicide-resistant weeds

This year’s agenda will take extra time to spell out the options of dealing with Palmer amaranth, which have become a major menace now that glyphosate-resistant biotypes have swept across the region. It will also look at the hard evidence on compaction and livestock effects, including loss of mulch cover.  Additional handouts include ‘bugs in a bucket’ (biologicals) and plant hormones, along with brief discussion of those products.  

The workshop will continue into discussion of what amount of mulch cover is optimum, and how crop rotations can be planned around this (and a couple dozen other factors) to enhance yields while reducing production risk. Successes and failures of cover crops are also condensed into a handout, sorted by localities across Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma.

Hagny is teaming up with Leland Baxa of the Aurora Co-op (Nebraska) for the event, who Hagny says is “a highly regarded, straight-talking agronomist, and staunch no-till advocate and good teacher of those practices.” Baxa has immense experience from his 20 years of spot-checking fields in northwest Kansas, southwest Nebraska, Colorado and western Oklahoma. 

Co-host John Grove of the University of Kentucky will bring his tremendous knowledge of soil properties, fertilizers and chemistry to the workshop, with most of his research in the past couple decades being in continuous no-till, including looking at crop rotations and crop establishment.  

The workshop runs from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 25, 2016 at the Ambassador (formerly the Ramada, previously the Holidome) in Salina, Kan., with a noon meal, snacks, coffee and tea provided.  Registration is $200 per person in advance, or $275 if received after Jan. 17. To register, check payments may be mailed to Pinnacle Crop Tech Inc., P.O. Box 298, Kechi, KS 67067-0298, or call (316) 303-2040 to pay by credit card. Please note that credit card payments will be charged a $7.65 convenience fee. Registration is limited to 150 people.