Do you think we will have a drought of 2013?

I am making no prediction as to what kind of weather we will have in 2013 crop year, but some experts are predicting more dry weather.  How will you handle that?   The first thing I would do is to look at hybrid selection.  Some producers eliminated certain varieties because of 2012 performance.  That is not a bad idea.  Also ask your seedsman if there are any new varieties that perform better under drought stress.

Conserving soil moisture is also a good bet.  If you use tillage, use it sparingly.  If your ground is fairly smooth because of what you did this fall, consider a stale seedbed planting.  If you have not tilled, you may want to consider no-till.  In general soils that I have sampled have been in good condition for the most part.  This article posted by No-till Farmer has some interesting observations about no-till performance in 2012.   One of my tweeps in Scott County had good sucess with no-till this year.