Features
From the Editor: Lessons learned online

Herbicide-resistant weeds. Invasive insects. Creative production strategies. Crop inputs and timing. So many important elements to a successful crop; so little time. And yet, each year, these factors become more and more significant, with additional strategies and considerations cropping up to keep you on your toes. It reminds me a bit of parenthood: just when you think you’ve overcome a particularly challenging phase, a new development arises to throw you off again. 

But despite how helpful it would be to see into the future and predict what challenges (related to crop production, parenting, or otherwise) may arise in the days and weeks to come, imagine how boring it would be to know exactly what to expect at any given time. It would certainly change the way we do things, but we’d lose all of the lessons learned in the process – and on top of that, we’d have a hard time coming up with the agenda for our annual Top Crop Summit. 

 The Summit took on a different format this year, but if you attended our first virtual event, you’ll know how valuable the presentations and conversations were. And if you missed it, you’re in luck. This special digital edition contains summaries from each presentation, with some important graphs and charts highlighted. At the end of each article, we’ve linked the presentation recordings so you can register and watch them. And, as a bonus, some of the conversations with Albert Tenuta and Robyne Bowness Davidson were featured in a recent episode of Inputs, the podcast by Top Crop Manager, which you can listen to here. 

We hope you enjoy reading some of the insights our esteemed speakers provided at the Summit, and we look forward to hosting you again next year.