No-till Farmer Podcast

In part two of this podcast series, Dennis Michelsen and Michael Musselman, hosts of the podcast Innovations in Your Fields -- powered by NewFields Ag -- interview No-Till Farmer editor Frank Lessiter and Lessiter Media President Mike Lessiter about the role improved corn genetics played in the growth of no-till, and the value proposition of the practice even with today’s high input costs. Frank also talks about the beginning of the National No-Till Conference, mixes in anecdotes from decades of interviews and farm visits to lend perspective.

Dennis Michelsen and Michael Musselman, hosts of the podcast Innovations in Your Fields -- powered by NewFields Ag -- interview No-Till Farmer editor Frank Lessiter and Lessiter Media President Mike Lessiter about the evolution of no-till, the founding days of No-Till Farmer, and trends and technologies that helped no-till practices grow across the U.S. They also discuss the vision behind Frank’s first book about no-till, “From Maverick to Mainstream: A History of No-Till Farming.”

We’re back this week with another conversation with No-Till Living Legend and 2024 Conservation Ag Operator Fellow Ray McCormick — this time from the cab of his truck as he’s out scouting after a heavy rainstorm in Vincennes, Ind. Today’s episode was recorded in mid-May, a day after the Vincennes area received 5 inches of rain in less than 24 hours. Let’s listen in as Ray scouts fields with No-Till Farmer contributing writer Michaela Paukner.

Dover, Minn., no-tillers Dan and Abby Fohrman raised a no-till yield of 298.95 bushels in 2023, securing them a first-place win in the National Corn Growers Association’s Minnesota no-till non-irrigated category last year. In today’s episode of the podcast, brought to you by The Andersons’ Over Pass Lineup, contributing writer Laura Barrera talks with Dan Fohrman about his contest-winning corn yield and his approach to raising high-yield no-till corn.

The problem with traditional tissue testing for crops is the lack of information about how much of a nutrient is needed to correct a problem, according to Hickory, N.C., no-tiller Russell Hedrick. In today’s episode of the podcast, brought to you by The Andersons’ Over Pass Lineup, Hedrick and Sarah Martello, CEO and co-founder of Transparency Wise Technologies, talk about Foliar Scripts and the benefits it brings for farmers.

When Muncie, Ind., farmer Joe Hamilton decided to switch from conventional tillage to no-till, everyone told him he’d be crazy to make the transition on 1,000 acres during his first year. In today’s episode of the podcast, brought to you by The Andersons’ Over Pass Lineup, Hamilton shares the lessons he learned in year 1 and beyond.

No-tillers stand to benefit from updates to the U.S. Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) tax credit. The U.S. Department of the Treasury and IRS released a notice April 30 that details an updated version of the Greenhouse Gases, Regulated Emissions and Energy Use in Transportation (GREET) model, which is used to determine CI scores of SAF feedstocks.

More than 91% of no-tillers who responded to the 2024 No-Till Operational Practices Survey use precision technologies on their farms, and many experts see no-tillers on the cutting edge of new agriculture technology like autonomy. In this episode of the podcast, brought to you by The Andersons, no-tiller Nick Guetterman of Bucyrus, Kan.; John Fulton, Ohio State University Extension ag engineer; no-tiller Joe Hamilton of Muncie, Ind.; and no-tiller Tim Norris of the “No-Till Capital of the World” Knox County, Ohio, discuss their outlook on autonomy in agriculture and the most valuable precision technologies in use on their farms.

No-Till Living Legend Ray McCormick has improved and restored thousands of acres of farmland, woodlands and wetlands in the Vincennes, Ind., area and beyond. In this episode of the podcast, brought to you by The Andersons, McCormick takes us on a tour of some of the farm and wetland projects he’s completed around Vincennes.

No-Till Living Legend Ray McCormick from Vincennes, Ind., is No-Till Farmer’s 2024 Conservation Ag Operator Fellow. The annual fellowship spotlights the real-time decision-making McCormick uses to make no-till — or never till as he calls it — work on his farm. In this episode of the No-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment, McCormick talks about how he first got involved with restoring farmland into wetlands, seeding cover crops with the combine, his planting philosophies and more.

For this latest episode in this series of Influencers & Innovators podcasts, brought to you by Source by Sound Agriculture, Roy Pfaltzgraff of Haxtum, Colorado, talks about his 30-year assessment of the costs of tillage, no-tillage with fallow and no-till with a soil health focus. Cropping 2,200 dryland acres in an area that receives less than 14 inches of average rainfall yearly, Roy shares his insights from a presentation at the thirty-second annual National No-Tillage Conference on how he’s changed the operation’s focus over the past 8 years while raising 12 or more different crops each year in this extremely dry aera of northeastern Colorado.

At the 2024 Commodity Classic show in Houston, extreme weather conditions were on many no-tillers’ minds as they thought ahead to planting season. In this episode of the No-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment, managing editor Michaela Paukner talks to 9 growers about their expectations and preparations for the 2024 planting season.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators Podcast, brought to you by SOURCE® from Sound Agriculture, listen to No-Till Innovator and CEO at Rodale Institute, Jeff Moyer as he tells the story of how he helped to create and popularize the first roller crimper, which would completely change the game for no-tillers, cover croppers and regenerative ag growers around the world.

In this episode of the No-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment, technology editor Noah Newman talks to Ron Digman, a no-tiller from Mount Hope, Wis. about the planter technology investments and management it took to raise 96-bushel per acre soybeans, a yield that earned him second place in the 2022 Wisconsin Soybean Association Yield Contest.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators Podcast, brought to you by SOURCE® from Sound Agriculture, listen to the Dave Brandt Memorial lecture from this year’s 32nd Annual National No-Tillage Conference.

Bill Northey, the former Iowa agriculture secretary and USDA leader, passed away in early February, leaving behind a legacy of farm policy leadership and influence on conservation agriculture. In this episode, brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment, we’re sharing Northey’s keynote presentation from the 2015 National Strip-Tillage Conference about applying science and technology to improve conservation tillage practices.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators Podcast, brought to you by SOURCE® from Sound Agriculture, President of Lessiter Media, Mike Lessiter, talks about the history of the National No-Tillage Conference, what it’s grown to today, and his thoughts on the future of no-till and the conference. We also hear from Hans Kok, an independent conservation consultant, as he talks about his time at 25 of the 32 conferences, which have been held in January since 1993.

In this episode of the No-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment, contributing editor Dan Crummett talks to Bill Chism, chair of the Weed Science Society of America, about how evolving EPA regulations to protect endangered species will affect your herbicide use in the coming months.

In this episode, we count down the most popular episodes of 2023, starting with a rapid-fire panel discussion between Alan Berry, Ross Bishop and Stan Miller, three farmers who spoke on a No-Till Innovator panel at the National No-Tillage Conference.

For this episode of the No-Till Farmer Influencers & Innovators Podcast, brought to you by SOURCE® from Sound Agriculture, editor Frank Lessiter chats with Nebraska cropping systems specialist, Bob Klein. The conversation covers no-till history as well as the concept of Eco-Fallow —the process of controlling weeds after wheat harvest with herbicides, while minimizing soil disturbance as much as possible and conserving soil moisture.