This year’s annual National No-Till Conference – Jan 10 – 13 – in St. Louis is perhaps the best ever. Here’s the link to the website. Click on the image below to see the entire prgram listing.
For you cover crop fans, here’s a listing of the speakers, classes and roundtable discussions about cover crops. There are plenty available on each of the three days of the conference.
Wednesday
Speakers
- Ray McCormick, Indiana, 2400 acre grower, all no-till w/cover crop
- J.C. Cahill – U of Alberta…how plants talk to each other and how knowing that might be important for your farm.
Classes
Ray Weil, U of Maryland soil scientist
- Improve crop access to water and nutrients
- Keep more N on your farm – research on how cover crops help N mgmt.
- Boost soil bio processes in deeper layers
Ray McCormick, Indiana, 2400 acres, all no-till with cover crops
- Adapting equipment for use in seeding cover crops
- How to do it inexpensively ($13/a).
Dan Towery and Hans Kok, Indiana/Illinois
- Interseeding cover crops into corn
- Adding wheat to your rotation
- Planting 8 – 15 way cover crop cocktail after wheat…and how that could produce a double digit increase in corn and soybean yields while cutting your N application rates in half.
Egon Zunckel, South Africa
- Mitigating poor water infiltration, erosion and stagnant yields with a variety of practices, including cover crops
- Introduction of livestock to help manage large amounts of crop residue.
Seth Watkins, Iowa
- Cover crops, prairie strips, buffers, native grasses, terracing, crop rotation and rotational livestock grazing – protecting soils while building organic matter quickly and boosting profits.
Jim Johnson, Noble Foundation soils consultant
- Grazing cover crops – how to get started
- Research results from a variety of states.
Ten No-Till Round-table discussions on Cover Crops, including:
- From the North Plains states, to NE and Mid Atlantic
- Great Lakes and Ontario
- Southern and High Plains
- Midwest states: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri.
Mike Plumer – Making Sense of Cover Crop Mixes
- When does one cover crop – or two or three – make more sense than a cocktail of mixes?
- How to balance cost with needs?
- Determine what soils need before making decisions about seed.
Thursday
Joe Breker, ND grower (spoke at inaugural No-Till Conference in 1993)
- Cover crops in northern climates
- Slash input costs with improved organic matter, banding fertilizer and cover crops.
Mike Plumer – Tips for Terminating cover Crops more effectively
- How to do it effectively and save yourself headaches?
- How weather, seed varieties, growth states and herbicide choices factor in?
- Why to avoid the Variety Not Stated (VNS) label?
Alan Mindermann, Oklahoma
- Use cover crops to help mitigate the effects of unpredictable weather and limited moisture
- How to track moisture and herbicide applications while making rotation decisions?
Robert Kremer, Ag Research Center, MO
- Impact of cover crops on suppressing weeds and weed seed banks.
Roundtable discussions
- Making the Right moves with Cover Crop mixes
- Seeing the Potential in Cereal Rye Seeding
- Getting out of the Starting Gate with Annual Ryegrass
- Turning Up No-Till Diversity with Radishes
Friday
Round-table discussions
- Tips, Tools for Timely Cover Crop Seeding
- Cover Crops that Cut Your Fertilizer Bill.
Randy McElroy, Sustainability researcher at Monsanto Co.
- Transform soil with a variety of tools, including cover crops.