The Case for Strip Till: Healthy Soil, Less Tile, Better Root Growth

In this article, Dennis Smith, an Iowa farmer, is a strip-tiller. He loves the system and nobody would “ever get me to go back to full width tillage. There’s so much flexibility with this system, I wouldn’t farm any other way.” He was a conventional till farmer, with a heavy disk and a field cultivator, but erosion was a terrible problem. Too, he wanted a better way to apply fertilizer to his crops. A neighboring farmer, Mike Hermanson, had built a strip till rig and Smith went to check it out. He liked what he saw, and began running his operation as a strip-tillage one. With strip till, the bumped up earthworm and soil microbe populations were getting rid of the crop residue faster. He doesn’t need pattern tile, as the system works a lot better with water absorption. His organic matter also has went up with strip tillage. He was suprised how good his strip till machine worked in wet ground conditions. He has ran the rig through standing water, and every piece of corn grew. With this system, Smith has better corn root growth because of well-placed fertilizer.

http://cornandsoybeandigest.com/tillage/case-strip-till-healthy-soil-less-tile-better-root-growth