Reduced and modified tillage systems, including strip-till, represent strategies to reduce soil degradation and erosion and protect water quality.

Dr. Tracy Blackmer, Director of Research for Cover Crop Solutions, provides a basic understanding of the nutrient benefits provided by various species of cover crops and how no-tillers can properly utilize those cover crops to reduce their levels of applied fertilizer. [To view any of our webinar replays, you must be logged in with a free user account.]

For years, the annual field preparation routine for Dresden, Ontario, farmer Mark Richards included a minimum of three tillage passes ahead of planting.

Iowa Learning Farms will host a Strip-till and Cover Crops for Nutrient Management field day on Tuesday, June 17 at the farm of Mark Thompson near Badger, Iowa from 5:30-7:30 p.m. Topics that will be discussed include the use of strip-tillage and cover crops as conservation farming techniques, and how these methods reduce water impairment and pollution. The event is free-of-charge and open to the public, and dinner will be provided.

Strip-till systems were developed several decades ago and are now widely used in the coastal plains region of the southeastern United States for crops such as cotton, corn, and peanuts as a means to break up the naturally settling and consolidating subsoil layers that are routinely formed in this area.

We invite you to take part in our first Strip-Till Benchmark Survey, which will let you compare your cropping operation with fellow strip-tillers.

From 1991 until 1996, our publishing company produced a newsletter called Ridge-Till Hotline. It was a similar product to what we have been doing over the past 4 decades with No-Till Farmer.

During this webinar event held Tuesday, April 8th, 2014, Walton, Ind., no-tiller Cameron Mills shared timely tips for getting complete control and desiccation of annual ryegrass prior to planting.

Talking with strip-tillers, they tend to have a strong preference for building berms in either spring or fall, often based on experience with both systems.

With many strip-till rigs starting to run this spring there are agronomic goals to keep in mind. Orthman Mfg. agronomist Randy Haarberg offers 3 Principles of Strip Till that he feels need to be addressed on every acre of strip tillage: