National No-Till Conference – 25th Anniversary – Features Lots of Cover Crop Ed.

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.

NNTC17 Program Cover

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.