NNTC

NNTC stand for the National NoTillage Conference. The conference is held the second week of January each year at Cincinnati, Des Moines or this year, St. Louis. It draws nearly 1000 farmers who represent some of the most innovative notill farms in America, Canada and other countries.

I accidentally found it in the 90's when it was in St. Louis and I was in town for another conference. It was love at first sight. A few years later, I was nominated as a NoTill Innovator of the year and accepted the award in Des Moines with men more notable than me, like Jon Kinzenbaw, found of famous Kinze Manufacturing.

It's a great conference because it lets me "rub shoulders" with people who forgot more than I will ever know. Many of the them have not missed a conference in 20 years and hundreds have been in attendance 10 years or more like myself.

I now serve on their board and work hard at nominating the best, most thought provoking speakers I and my friends can find. We try to make the conference better each year with really timely topics and information you can't find anywhere else. We have been very successful at doing this as each conference feeds on the last one.

I can highly recommend almost every speaker this year and that in itself is quite an accomplishment. This year a young lady who scouts fields in Iowa and whom I respect will speak on the nemesis of 2011, Goss's Wilt. Goss's Wilt caused billions of dollars of income loss due to sick corn across the midwest.

I really harped on getting more on this topic of "what glyphosate does to soils" and the conference was able to get Dr. Don Huber, Professor Emeritus from Purdue share his reasearch on the subject. I have friends who will not spray glyphosate on their farm and I have seen contracts where Round Up Ready systems are not allowed to be used on rented farms. Right or wrong, it is that serious.

These topics will help farmers get to the crux of the matter. LuAnn asked who of your buddies will be there? I drew a blank and couldn't name names. They are ALL my buddies! NNTC is truly family.

You can learn more there next week than any place I know of so if you are not super busy, you ought to make the effort to come visit. But be prepared, your brain will hurt after all the discussion!

Ed Winkle