FOR BRIAN MARTIN, it’s not hard to see that having a no-till system keeps soil in place on his farm’s sloping terrain. But Martin also has a thirst for looking beyond the anecdotes for data that spells out what practices benefit the bottom line.
Darren Grumbine is leaving no stone unturned in his quest to maximize yield production on his no-till operation, whether that means tweaking equipment or casting a critical on eye on long-held assumptions about nutrient and disease management.
For some time, Luke Linnenbringer felt like he was on a treadmill trying to farm profitably in a conventional-tillage system with degraded soils and stagnant yields. In fact, he was ready to stop cropping nearly a decade ago.
Growers in central Pennsylvania share how they tweaked their planting units to optimize corn stands while still getting cover crops into their rotations.
Soil conditions in Pennsylvania can vary as much as the terrain, from sandy or clay loam to rocks and knobs of shale — presenting a potential nightmare for no-tillers trying to achieve consistent stands and protect yield potential.
Hatton, Mo., no-tiller Luke Linnenbringer talks about the roller attachment he built for his John Deere 7300 planter to flatten cereal rye at planting. Linnenbringer rolls, plants, sprays herbicides and applies fertilizer all in one pass. “I’ve had conventional soybeans that I’ve not gone back to check until harvest. It’s a two-pass system,” he says.
No-tilling and planting green into living covers is the right formula to help Frank Martin improve the tilth of his shallow, claypan soils and get better planting results.
Frank Martin likes to keep things simple. He uses older combines with no yield monitors and he isn’t into using a lot of precision mapping on his 800-acre farm.
Tough lessons about farm management lead brothers Andy and Anthony Beck to no-till. Improved profits and healthier soils turned them into dedicated practitioners.
For many farmers, it can take years to make the transition from traditional tillage to no-till practices, often starting with a small field and adding acres each year.
Cooler soils, moisture retention, better emergence and more sugar content and tonnage are just some of the reasons Greg Schlemmer is going all-in on no-tilling sugarbeets.
It’s not uncommon to see farmers in Montana disc rip, plow, roll, level and ridge their fields to raise sugarbeets — even ridging a second time if wind or storms either flatten or wash away the ridges.
About 75% OF the acres around me still aren’t no-tilled. I can’t blame them. It wasn’t the easiest change to make, but it’s well worth it in my opinion.
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During the Sustainable Agriculture Summit in Minneapolis, Minn., Carrie Vollmer-Sanders, the president of Field to Market who also farms in Northeast Indiana and Northwest Ohio, shared why it is important for no-tillers and strip-tillers to share their knowledge with other farmers.
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