Strip-Till Farmer’s 11th annual Strip-Till Operational Benchmark Study, with responses from 215 strip-tillers across the U.S., shows that strip-till yields didn’t take much of a dip in 2023, despite much of the country experiencing dry or drought conditions.
The average strip-tilled corn yield was 204.1 bushels per acre in 2023, less than 3 bushels shy of the 207-bushel average in 2022 and almost 27 bushels higher than the USDA average of 177.3 bushels per acre.
“Those numbers speak for themselves,” says Michael Petersen, former NRCS soil scientist and independent consultant with over 35 years of strip-till research experience. “That’s almost a 30-bushel improvement over the USDA average. That’s incredibly significant. I’ve been working in strip-till since 1986, and I’m still shaking my head that more people still don’t get how good of a concept it is. But hey, I’m biased.”
73.2% of survey respondents also no-till some of their acres, while 27.4% vertical-till, 24% practice conventional tillage and 5% mulch-till. Although strip-tilled corn yields were better than the 195-bushel no-till average, survey respondents reported higher corn yields of 211.1 bushels per acre on their vertical-till and conventional/mulch-till fields in 2023.
The average strip-tilled soybean yield was 59.1 bushels per acre, down less than 2 bushels from 2022. This is 2 bushels better than the average no-till yield of 57 bushels per acre and almost 9 bushels higher than the USDA average of 50.6. Conventional/mulch-till and vertical-till led with 66.4 bushels per acre and 66 bushels per acre respectively.
Fall vs. Spring
Fall strip-till topped spring strip-till for the 4th year in a row as 45.2% of survey respondents made their strips in the fall, while 33.1% waited until the spring and 21.7% did both. 19.2% refreshed fall strips in the spring, up nearly 9 percentage points from both 2022 and 2021.
“Some make strips in both the fall and spring because of timing,” Petersen says. “Maybe they get weathered out, and others find that there is a benefit for whatever their spring crop is going to be, especially if it’s going to be planted a little bit later. Now, if you go down into the southern states like Florida and Texas, there’s a lot more mixing and matching, some in the spring and some in the fall.”
Strip-tillers in the Corn Belt and Lake States shared with Strip-Till Farmer their motivations behind the timing of strip building.
“It seems like strips made in the fall warm up faster in the spring,” says Charles City, Iowa, strip-tiller Grant Stewart. “There is better water infiltration from rain and melting snow as well. We’ve had wet springs where we couldn’t plant on conventional or no-till ground because it was too wet, but the strip-tilled ground was firm enough to drive on and dry enough to plant.”
“Spring strip-till works better with my soils,” says Albany, Wis., strip-tiller Randy Bump. “I want the corn residue to break down more in the fall. I’ve tried fall strip-till, but it left a lot of lumps in the soil with the clay content on our hills. Plus, I don’t want to lose nutrients over the winter in our sandy soils. I don’t want to apply a ton of nitrogen (N) in the fall and not have all of it there in the spring.”
Equipment Trends
Whether it’s a 24-row bar or a 6-row bar, strip-tillers have plenty of options to choose from with 20 different brands listed on the survey. Kuhn Krause took the top spot as the most popular strip-till rig (20.5%) for the 7th year in a row. Curt Davis, marketing director for Kuhn Krause, acknowledges the arena is becoming more crowded as major manufacturing companies invest in strip-till.
“Strip-till has always been more of a side item for major manufacturers than what it’s becoming today,” Davis says. “There have always been a lot of manufacturers in the strip-till industry, but they’ve been the smaller, regional type companies. Now, you see several of the major companies focusing more on strip-till. I think that’s being driven by demand from customers.”
18.6% of survey respondents selected “other” for their strip-till rig, which was the second most popular choice. Case IH/DMI (12.8%), Environmental Tillage Systems (11.3%), Yetter (9.6%), Orthman (7.8%) and Dawn Equipment (6.4%) rounded out the top 6 brands in 2023.
Petersen remembers when there were only a handful of companies offering strip-till equipment in the early 1990s. The former lead agronomist for Orthman is encouraged that more manufacturers have joined the party, but he says many are still missing the mark with their sales approach.
"The numbers speak for themselves. That’s almost a 30-bushel improvement over the USDA average…"
“The one thing that’s strange is the agronomics behind strip-till still do not take priority with all the implement companies,” Petersen says. “They build machines, and they sell people on what the machine is. They don’t sell it on the agronomic benefits. The science behind it is probably the best thing going for strip-till because all those agronomic advantages are just incredible.”
Shanks vs. Coulters
Shanks and coulters continue to be the most popular row unit setup used to make strips. 45.8% of survey respondents used shanks in 2023, while 43.2% used a coulter system and 28.4% used a mole knife.
“A lot of that is personal preference, but in wet soils, the shank can be a nuisance for some growers if they don’t have adequate drainage,” Petersen says. “Those numbers are what I’d expect, but I still think the shank machine is probably the best choice.”
Strip-tillers Brian Ryberg and Jon Stevens have differing opinions on shanks and coulters, despite farming in the same state.
“I’m a coulter fan,” says Ryberg, who strip-tills in Buffalo Lake, Minn. “I’ve heard complaints about shanks that they can cause air pockets in the strips. Shanks will bring up rocks, and coulters will leave rocks in the ground. While demoing in heavy corn residue, the shanks limited residue flow and plugged row units.”
“I like shanks with our soils,” says Stevens, who strip-tills in Rock Creek, Minn. “We have lighter soil, but there’s enough clay content that it gets shallow compaction very quickly, and I have found that the shank in the spring keeps that soil mellow most of the summer. The shank naturally pulls itself into the ground profile, which gives a good fracture of the soil. I would need a very aggressive ripple or even a smaller bubble-type coulter to get the results I want in our soil.”
Bill Preller, longtime strip-till consultant and founder of AGuru Machinery, says knives are more prevalent in areas where strip-till evolved from converted anhydrous ammonia applicators, such as the central and northern Corn Belt. No-tillers converting to strip-till and wanting less soil disturbance are more likely to invest in a coulter system, Preller adds.
“Growers who are looking for just a seedbed and not deep placement of fertilizer or deep soil fracture generally look at coulter-equipped machines,” he says. “Also, growers looking for higher field speeds tend to prefer coulters because they can cover more acres quickly by not running deeply.”
Preller says the shank is typically the tool of preference when deeper nutrient banding is desired.
How Low Can You Go?
6 inches is once again the most popular depth for strips and fertilizer placement. 34.6% of surveyed strip-tillers made their strips 6 inches deep, while 21.2% went 7 inches deep and 16% went 8 inches deep.
30.5% banded their fertilizer 6 inches deep, 23.2% banded 5 inches deep and 15.9% banded 7 inches deep. While 5-7 inches seems to be the sweet spot, Petersen says strip-tillers could go even deeper if their row unit setup allows for it.
“8 inches, maybe even all the way down to 10 inches is best if you’re using a shank machine,” he says, “but I’m not sure you can go much deeper than 5 inches if you’re using a coulter system.”
Most strip-tillers (60.6%) banded their fertilizer below the berm, while 37.2% mixed it into the berm and 2.2% placed it between the berms. Broadcasting fertilizer should be a thing of the past in Petersen’s opinion.
“The agronomics behind strip-till still do not take priority with all the implement companies…”
“It’s only about 12% efficient,” he says. “When you think about strip-till and putting fertilizer products down in the zone of disturbance, you jump up to above 50% efficiency. Goodness gracious, that ought to tell you the story right there.”
51% of surveyed strip-tillers applied 0.8-0.99 pounds of N per bushel to reach their targeted strip-till corn yield goal, which is unchanged from the previous 2 years. However, 29.9% applied less than 0.8 pounds per bushel in 2023, compared to 25% in 2022. 19% applied 1-1.2 pounds per bushel in 2023.
“We experimented going all the way down to 0.7, and right at about that point, we started finding out the crop was lacking some things it needed to make it to the finish. So, the 0.8-0.99 range is right on target,” Petersen says.
More strip-tillers applied sulfur with their strip-till rig in 2023 (45.4%) than they did in 2022 (31.5%), while anhydrous ammonia usage dipped in 2023 (14.4%) compared to 2022 (26.2%). Potash, at 60.6%, was the most popular fertilizer applied with strip-till rigs in 2023. Applying other micronutrients jumped up nearly 11 percentage points to 22%. A full package of micronutrients helped Smithville, Ga., strip-tiller Alex Harrell achieve a world record 206-bushel soybean yield in 2023.
“We use all the micronutrients — zinc, manganese, magnesium, molybdenum, boron, copper and iron,” Harrell says. “It’s like baking a cake. If it takes 15 ingredients to bake a cake, you can probably leave 2 of them out and still have a cake at the end of it. But it won’t be as good as if you used all the ingredients. It’s the same thing with a crop.”
Cover Crop Usage Increases
Harrell also planted a 4-way winter cover crop mix of cereal rye, daikon radish, oats and triticale at a rate of 35 pounds per acre in the fall. He was one of many strip-tillers using cover crops in 2023. 73.9% of total respondents said they planted cover crops, up from 61% in 2022. The average number of cover crop acres increased from 457.9 in 2022 to 571.1 in 2023.
“In the Midwest and the Corn Belt states, that number sounds reasonable,” Petersen says. “Coming out west, though, I don’t think that figure would hold water, due to the reason that it was so dry throughout Nebraska and parts of South Dakota in 2023. The cover crops that went in failed. Cover crops were also abysmal failures for people I talked to in western Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.”
The top 6 most popular cover crop species in 2023 were cereal rye (71.6%), radish (41.4%), oats (35.3%), wheat (21.6%), rapeseed and turnips (both 20.7%). 54.1% of strip-tillers used 2-3 species in their cover crop mix, while 38.8% used 4-9.
Pushing Corn Populations
The average plant population for strip-tilled corn was 33,592 in 2023, up from an average of 31,281 in 2022. Iowa State’s Guide to Iowa Corn Planting determined the maximum corn plant population tends to be near 35,000 plants per acre for any tillage type.
But Fred Below, researcher and crop physiologist at the University of Illinois, says strip-tillers can likely use a population higher than that. Putting nutrients in a strip directly below the seed allows strip-tillers to manage more plants, plus strip-till conserves more water because of the residue next to the strip.
“I’m going to guess that most strip-tillers are using 30-inch rows, and a top-end population for 30-inch rows is 38,000 plants per acre,” Below says. “The population depends on rainfall, geography and water-holding ability, but I think strip-tillers are able to push the top-end population for a 30-inch row more than conventional tillage farmers are.”
Better nutrient placement and water-holding capacity also means strip-tillers will likely have better success with variable-rate seeding than conventional tillage farmers, according to Below. He recommends strip-tillers vary their rates based on water availability primarily, followed by nutrient supplying power.
“The main detriment of running up the population is you are worried about not having enough water and the plant lodging,” Below says. “Strip-tillers can put the phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) right in the strip. Both of those are huge advantages, especially the K, for standability and a little bit for water because K moves water to the strip zone.”
56% of strip-tillers apply nitrogen (N) at plant, the most common application time. While more than half of strip-tillers apply phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) in fall with their strips, about a quarter put down P and K at plant.
“That’s how they might be able to get out a little extra yield — because they’re placing the nutrients in the strip,” Below says. “My view is the advantages of strip-till give growers the option to manage the higher population of plants, and plant population drives yield.”
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