Ray McCormick Named Lessiter Ag Media’s 2024 Conservation Ag Operator Fellow

Feb 22, 2024

Initiative aims to broaden the practical understanding of how growers can find economic and sustainability success through Conservation Ag practices

Brookfield, Wis - Lessiter Media (parent company of Farm Equipment and Precision farming Dealer magazine) has selected Ray McCormick of Vincennes, Ind., as its 2024 Conservation Ag Operator Fellow. Launched in 2022 to mark the start of No-Till Farmer's second 50 years, the annual Conservation Ag Operator Fellowship program visits a leading no-till farmer throughout the year and shares the real-time decision-making and solutions needed to make no-till and conservation ag practices work in real-world conditions.

“It's a great honor to be selected to be the 2024 Fellow,” McCormick said. “Anything I can do today to further the cause of no-till, cover crops, conservation practices and sustainability will help agriculture have a brighter future for the next generation using the resources of this great country.”

Lessiter Media editors and industry advisors selected McCormick due to his extensive experience with no-till and innovative approach to implementing a diverse spectrum of conservation practices. McCormick is a 2010 No-Till Innovator Award recipient, was honored as a No-Till Living Legend in 2011 and is a frequent National No-Tillage Conference speaker. He has been no-tilling his 3,200-acre operation for more than 30 years.

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Video: Seeing the Whole Season: How Continuous Crop Modeling Is Changing Breeding

Plant breeding has long been shaped by snapshots. A walk through a plot. A single set of notes. A yield check at the end of the season. But crops do not grow in moments. They change every day.

In this conversation, Gary Nijak of AerialPLOT explains how continuous crop modeling is changing the way breeders see, measure, and select plants by capturing growth, stress, and recovery across the entire season, not just at isolated points in time.

Nijak breaks down why point-in-time observations can miss critical performance signals, how repeated, season-long data collection removes the human bottleneck in breeding, and what becomes possible when every plot is treated as a living data set. He also explores how continuous modeling allows breeding programs to move beyond vague descriptors and toward measurable, repeatable insights that connect directly to on-farm outcomes.

This conversation explores:

• What continuous crop modeling is and how it works

• Why traditional field observations fall short over a full growing season

• How scale and repeated measurement change breeding decisions

• What “digital twins” of plots mean for selection and performance

• Why data, not hardware, is driving the next shift in breeding innovation As data-driven breeding moves from research into real-world programs, this discussion offers a clear look at how seeing the whole season is reshaping value for breeders, seed companies, and farmers, and why this may be only the beginning.