Ask Hatley, Wis., strip-tiller Mike Fischer where he farms and he’ll jokingly tell you, “Just south of the Arctic Circle.” 

Despite the challenging conditions, Fischer and his son, John, have built a thriving 1,000-cow dairy operation, pairing livestock with a strip-till system that’s helped expand their business, reduce compaction and dramatically improve efficiency. 

“Strip-till has been a real game-changer,” says Fischer, who started strip-tilling 8 years ago. “It’s making our operation more resilient and more profitable. We moved to strip-till mainly to conserve the soil and quit picking rocks, which we’ve got a lot of.” 

The frigid temperatures and short fall windows also drove Fischer to strip-till. His rotation includes corn, alfalfa, meadow fescue grass and soybeans, including oleic varieties. 

“We tried some no-till and it works after alfalfa quite well, but after corn, not so well,” he says. “We’re too far north to make fall strips. We’re lucky to get the crop off.”

Becoming a Believer

Fischer’s entry point to strip-till came through a lease-to-own program with a 12-row Environmental Tillage Systems (ETS) SoilWarrior, which ultimately gave him the confidence he needed to make the practice work on his farm.  

“I became a believer in strip-till,” Fischer says. “When we first rented the SoilWarrior, we were expanding drastically as a farm. When you grow that fast, it’s a real challenge just getting everything done. Strip-till made everything possible.” 

Fischer’s SoilWarrior has two bins. He places potash in one bin and nitrogen (N) with micronutrients in the other, which are variable rate-applied — based on soil tests every 2 years — in strips 4-6 inches deep in the spring ahead of corn. 

“Thanks to the manure and alfalfa in our rotation, we’ve been able to cut back significantly on nitrogen,” says Fischer, who applies a little under 1 pound of N per targeted bushel. “Our highest yielding field last year had no sidedress application at all. It was just alfalfa and manure, and it yielded 236 bushels per acre. We get a 20-bushel yield bump after alfalfa.” 

Major Challenge

Manure management is the trickiest part of the equation when pairing together strip-till and dairy farming, Fischer says. The challenge isn’t just timing; it’s the sheer logistics of moving liquid manure when fields are often too wet to handle heavy equipment. “Compaction is always the battle,” he says.

Fischer hoses as much manure as possible using a custom applicator, but that only gets about half of the job done. The rest is hauled with a tanker and offloaded from trucks. Fischer applies most of the manure before making his spring strips but also applies some in the summer. 

“Applying manure during the summer spreads the season out,” he says, adding that incorporating cover crops into alfalfa stands before rotating to corn helps build resilience and reduce compaction. 

Rotation Builds Resilience

After 2 years of corn silage, Fischer plants oats in the fall ahead of alfalfa. During the 2nd year of alfalfa, he interseeds meadow fescue grass in July.  

“The interseeding has helped eliminate leaf spot pressure that was cutting our alfalfa yields in half,” Fischer says. “Because of the grass, our fields are also firmer and more resistant to erosion and soil compaction. This enables us to spread liquid manure throughout the summer at a lower and more sustainable rate as well. Doing this reduces what we spread in the fall.” 

Fischer plants cereal rye on all his corn silage acres. Some is intereseeded at sidedress time, while the rest is applied using an air seeder mounted on a 33-foot John Deere vertical-till unit after harvest in September. 

That same vertical-till unit is used to smooth and prepare fields for alfalfa. Fischer says vertical tillage helps make the most of his limited time between harvest and winter.

Top Benefits

Fischer values the resilience strip-till brings above all else. “It made everything we do possible,” he says. “Especially with putting up quality haylage, we must get that down Memorial Day weekend. That’s when it has to be done.”

In 2023, even with rain delays, they pulled it off — something he attributes to the efficiencies of strip-till. Fischer is blunt when asked what advice he’d give to other farmers considering the switch to strip-till. 

“They have to get over the hurdle of wanting perfect over good visually,” he says. “They want that perfect-looking field that tillage can get you in the spring, but the benefits of strip-till far outweigh that.

“It’s hard to put a finger on it, but when you’re a growing dairy farm, it’s just impossible to get everything done and grow without strip-till,” he adds. “Strip-till has improved our timeliness, resilience and profitability, even if it’s not a perfect fit for every acre.”