Mark Schleisman started farming full time in 2010 after working as an agronomist in western Nebraska, where he managed popcorn production for Conagra. A couple years later, he experimented with strip-till.

“We did it the cheap way, following anhydrous marks with the planter,” Schleisman says. “Then we built our own strip-till unit, which was more of a freshener than a machine that can handle heavy residue.”

Schleisman ran a Yetter strip freshener unit for about 4 years. He recently bought a 24-row Lynx machine, which he uses to apply dry fertilizer — phosphorus (P), potassium (K) and gypsum — with a shank in the fall on corn-on-corn acres. 

He switches over to a coulter setup in the spring to apply UAN 32% with ammonium thiosulfate. Corn following no-tilled soybeans only gets a spring strip-till coulter pass.

“We typically only use the fall shank on corn-on-corn ground where we have more residue to deal with,” Schleisman says. “The main thing we’re trying to do with the fall shank is prevent our manure application from getting stratified.”

Schleisman applies 2,500-3,500 gallons of liquid hog manure in the fall with a no-till coulter, and broadcasts about 7.5-10 tons of dry cattle manure on fields that don’t get hog manure.

For more information on Mark Schleisman’s NCGA Yield Contest winning strip-till plot, read Noah Newman’s article “Strip-Till Family Builds Winning Formula for 300-Bushel Yields” featured in the Spring 2026 Issue of Strip-Till Farmer.