By MICHELE F. MIHALJEVICH
Indiana Correspondent

AUBURN, Ind. — After struggling with emergence issues in no-till corn, John Nidlinger found that using strip-till instead made a big difference on his farm in Adams County, Ind.

“We saw a fuel savings, and we saw a soil savings, as we were building the soil and increasing organic matter,” said Nidlinger, owner and operator of Nidlinger Farms, Inc. in Decatur. He spoke last week during the Tri-State Conservation Farming Expo in Auburn.

“We found a warmer soil strip, three to four degrees warmer,” he said. “We found drier soils in the strip and we had better emergences.”

Increasing profitability and enhancing the productivity of soils are two keys in agriculture, he said.

“You want to try to cut your input costs and improve the soil,” he said. “We can enhance the productivity through nutrient retention, clean water, increasing organic matter and retaining carbon.”

The heavy clay, poorly drained soils prevalent in parts of Indiana mean tiling is often necessary, Nidlinger said. “A neighbor once told me, either you put the tile in and you pay for it then, or you pay for it by not putting them in.”

In the spring of 1999, tile was put in a 40-acre section of the Nidlinger farm. A couple of years later, yield maps showed more consistent yields, he said.

Another tool designed to make farming more efficient are RTK guidance systems, which provide several benefits despite the large upfront cost, Nidlinger said. RTK, or real-time kinematics, allows farmers to better control the farm operation, he added.

“The system allows the operator to manage the field operation,” he said. “You can better monitor planting and what you’re doing.”
The guidance system also allows for multi-pass accuracy and a controlled traffic pattern, Nidlinger said. Production records, such as the application of nutrients and chemicals, are also more easily kept.

Farmers should be aware of the risks of using chemicals to control insects, said Kevin Steffey, a professor and extension entomologist for the University of Illinois-Urbana. He also spoke during the conservation expo.

“Farmers should avoid unnecessary use,” he said. “But it’s not a foregone conclusion that use of insect control products in corn and soybeans will cause an ecological backlash.”

Steffey began his discussion on Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and insect control inputs by telling the audience what IPM doesn’t mean. “It’s not a synonym for sustainable agriculture or organic agriculture, and it’s not anti-pesticide or anti-technology,” he said. “And it’s not a liberal left-wing conspiracy to undermine the very foundation of agriculture.”

Rather, he said, it’s a system designed to reduce the impact of pests while sustaining profitability and environmental quality. While modern insect control methods fit well into an IPM framework, a lack of integration could cause problems in the field, Steffey said.