While strip-till boosts Arizona farmer Robert Boyle’s bottom line and overall efficiency, the practice is also transforming his soil health. That was on full display when he stuck a shovel into one of his recently planted cotton fields. 

Boyle held up an earthworm in the palm of his hand on a 100-degree day in late May. “This is a trophy. Fifteen years ago, this was an afterthought. There never would’ve been a worm in this place. To find an earthworm with the first shovel out of the ground, that’s just unheard of in Arizona,” he says. 

But the change in soil life didn’t happen overnight, as it took a few years for the new management practices to show improvements.

“It took me a long time to screw up my farm and a long time to fix it,” he says. “Don’t be afraid to farm ugly. I don’t mind a few weeds. I don’t mind some stubble sitting out there. I’d rather have that than the picturesque fields of bare ground with no soil structure or biology.” 

The field where Boyle dug up the earthworm went through a cover crop-fallow-cover crop cycle before he strip-tilled cotton into it. Boyle was so impressed with the soil in 2026 that he wasted no time planting.

To read more about 2026 Strip-Till innovator Robert Boyle’s farm and how strip-till is effective even in the Arizonan desert, read Noah Newman’s article “Proving Strip-Till Can Work Anywhere — Even in the Desert”  featured in the Summer 2026 issue of Strip-Till Farmer.