Joseph Sisk

Being a trendsetter comes with both rewards and risks. As one of the first farmers to experiment with strip-till in southwest Kentucky, Joseph Sisk has capitalized on the early promise of the practice, while also enduring some of the inevitable transitional challenges.

Starting small 4 years ago, Sisk gradually added acres to his strip-till system and now strip-tills all 2,300 acres of his corn on his 5,000-acre operation in Hopkinsville, Ky., which includes no-till soybeans and wheat, along with cover crops.

“The challenge we wanted to solve with strip-till was on our rolling ground, finding a way to marry the cover cropping we had been doing without the risk of degrading our corn stands,” Sisk says. “We understand the value of having something growing in our fields during winter, and with strip-till, now being able to minimize erosion, while increasing water holding capacity has been huge.”

During a classroom session at the 2018 National Strip-Tillage Conference, July 26-27 in Iowa City, Iowa, Sisk will break down the successes and struggles in expanding his strip-till system, to include examples of his early-experiences adopting the practice.

The 5th annual National Strip-Tillage Conference will be held at the Marriott Coralville Hotel & Conference Center and feature 2 days of strip-till education through an array of thought-provoking general sessions, strategy-packed strip-till classrooms and highly collaborative strip-till roundtable discussions.

Register now for just $269. Attendees who register their farm and family members receive additional savings. For more information and to register for the conference, visit striptillconference.com.

Title sponsors making the learning and networking opportunities possible for strip-tillers include AgroLiquid, Copperhead Ag, Dawn Equipment Co., Environmental Tillage Systems, Ingersoll Tillage Group, Kuhn Krause, Montag Mfg., Schlagel Manufacturing, Thurston Mfg. (Blu-Jet), Topcon Agriculture, Vulcan Equipment and Yetter Mfg.