With a desire to pump up small grain yields, no-tillers are searching for better ways to combat a growing number of costly pests. As a result, attendees at last winter’s 15th National No-Tillage Conference were keenly interested in learning to do a more effective job of controlling yield-grabbing pests.

There have never been more corn hybrid selections and protections on the market to help meet the needs of no-tillers. We’ve moved a long way from the hybrid guessing game no-tillers were in just a few short years ago.

The still-germinating carbon credits market favors no-tillers, who ought to get on board early to make the most of the long-term financial rewards. That’s the advice from Mark Wilson, president of Land Stewards, a Columbus, Ohio-based consulting firm hired by the non-profit Ohio No-Till Council to study the subject.

Something has to change! For the third year in the past four, dry summer weather here in mid-Missouri severely reduced my dryland corn yields.

Results of a long-term evaluation of five weed control systems in northern Illinois indicate that yield is the major difference rather than the actual amount of effective weed control.