I was raised on a family farm near Buffalo Center, Iowa, but now I live by Lake Mills on a small, primarily corn and soybean operation. 

After earning an agronomy degree from Iowa State in 2002, I spent the first 18 years of my career working in ag retail in various forms as a certified crop advisor and a professional sales agronomist. I worked for a large ag chem retailer for about 11 years and then took over a Pioneer dealership in 2015. 

When Dad retired, I took over farming a portion of his acres at night outside of running the Pioneer business. That all changed in 2022, though, when I became a full-time farmer for the first time. 

Hello, Strip-Till

I first became interested in strip-till around 2008, primarily from learning about it on NewAgTalk.com and from some of the old “G.O.A.T.s” of strip-till like Jim Bassett and the SoilWarrior guys. They were coming out with these new rigs that really got my attention as an agronomist. 

I love the efficiency of banding nutrients, using less horsepower and making fewer passes across the field. At the time, we were a conventional farm and did a lot of tillage. Everything was blacker than the Ace of Spades. But that wasn’t in my control.

I tried showing my dad the benefits of strip-till, but he wasn’t having it. We’re both alphas and we clashed over it. When I started farming with him in 2010, I decided pretty quickly that I wanted to strip-till come hell or high water. 

Tough Conversations

In 2011, I met with my folks on the porch. I’ll never forget it. I basically told them, “Listen, if you eventually want me to take over this farm in the future, this is how I’m going to do it. You’re either with me or without me. I’m going to buy a strip-till rig.”

They decided if I was this passionate about it, they’d give me a chance. They agreed to come along. If I bought the bar, they’d buy RTK and a used Montag fertilizer cart, and it was up to me to figure everything out. 

We only strip-tilled about a third of our acres that first year. Dad said for him to really get on board he wanted to see how strip-till would perform on corn-on-corn. In 2012, he gave me 15 acres on an 80-acre field where I got to strip-till. With the drought that year, there were a lot of issues and challenges. But my dad said, “Despite how it looks, the only thing that matters is how it weighs at the end of the year.” 

Strip-Till vs. Conventional

We did a side-by-side trial of my corn-on-corn vs. Dad’s that was under conventional tillage. We weighed his first, and then we weighed mine. When we were done, Dad wouldn’t look at me. He was just staring at the scale. And then he looked at his phone, and he looked back at the scale and there was just silence. I just sat there and waited. Finally, he issued these words — “Wipe that damn smile off your face because we both know what the result is.” 

The strip-till was 27 bushels better than the conventional tillage. Dad said, “Obviously I’ve been doing something wrong over the last several years and we’re going to make a change and head in this direction.”

Fast forward to 2025, I’m 100% fall strip-till and cover crops on 1,200 acres of corn and soybeans. Over our last 2 soil sampling cycles, we’ve increased organic matter on average across the whole farm by about 0.9%. That’s what my dad is most excited about. He was against strip-till at first, but now he’s the biggest salesman for it. 

Strip-Till Advice

Here’s my advice for “newbies” getting into strip-till. Do your homework ahead of time. The people who are the least successful are the ones who go in half-cocked and really haven’t thought all the processes through. Secondly, build consensus within your operation. It’s really important to have everyone on board when you make the decision. 

The third thing is do it for the right reasons. Do it because you want to make your farm more resilient, your soil healthier and you want to minimize erosion. Don’t do it for an NRCS payment or a tax credit potentially coming back from the ethanol plant someday. If you can take advantage of those programs, then great, but you’ll be disappointed if everything hinges on those extra dollars. You need to believe in what you’re doing to get through the bad days. 

And then finally, burn the ships. Take away all the equipment when you go this way and get rid of all the things that could be tempting you to go back and do it the old way, especially if you have other people in the operation because when things don’t go well, oftentimes they’ll hit the easy button.