When it comes to planting and seeding, more no-tillers are relying on precision technology for accurate placement, according to No-Till Farmer's 17th annual No-Till Operational Benchmark Study. Just over 30% plan to variable-rate their seed in 2025, a 4-point increase from 2024. In corn specifically, 31.3% of no-tillers will variable-rate their seed, up 7.6 points from 23.7% in 2024. Another 3.6% plan to start the practice this year.

Variable-rate fertilizing is also growing, with 37.8% using this technology in 2025, up 6.8 points from 2024.

Most no-tillers (70.5%) will use a tractor with GPS-guided auto-steer and capture their yield data with a yield monitor (61.4%). Over half of no-tillers will also use field mapping (56.1%) and auto-seed shutoff (51.6%). Adoption of all four technologies is up from 2024.

Of those no-tillers (21.8%) adopting drone technology, 24.4% use drones for scouting crops, 19.8% for applying fungicides, 19% for seeding cover crops, 8.3% for applying herbicides, 5.8% for applying insecticides and 4.1% for applying fertilizer. 

The only two technologies where we saw use drop off were with GPS guidance light bars, which fell 4.6 percentage points to 22.1%, and GPS implement guidance, down 1.3 points to 17%. Less than 9% of no-tillers will not use any precision technologies.