Editor's note: This article is an excerpt from Frank Lessiter's book, "From Maverick to Mainstream: A History of No-Till Farming." 

While growers were moving toward no-tilled soybeans in a big way during the 1990s, no-tilled corn acres remained somewhat flat. Many farmers feared problems when they tried to no-till corn into cold, wet ground covered with residue.

As a result, strip-till, which is a modified form of zone tillage, soon emerged as a compromise. These machines move residue away from the narrow row area in the fall or spring and create a strip of bare soil. The system combines the soil drying and warming benefits of conventional tillage with the soil-protecting advantages of no-till while only disturbing soil in the row area. 

Strip-till usually meant working the soil 6-to-8-inches deep and allowed deep placement of phosphorus and potassium in areas where roots could easily access them. In some cases, row cleaners moved residue away from the row area where the 6-8-inch-tall berm was being built. A coulter could also be used to slice through residue, and a shank or mole knife sliced a narrow slot through the soil.

Rich Follmer, the retired president of Progressive Farm Products in Hudson, III., recalls a day in 1995, when No-Till Farmer Editor Frank Lessiter asked him to give a 30-minute presentation on strip-till at the National No-Tillage Conference in Indianapolis.

"After wrapping up my talk, I spent the next 3 1/2 hours in the hotel hallway fielding questions about strip-till from attendees," Follmer recalls. "The response was unbelievable. I'd never seen so much interest in strip-till."

Follmer, who was a No-Till Innovator in 2008 and a Strip-Till Hall of Fame inductee in 2023, wasn't the first strip-till speaker at the conference. During the first annual mid-winter event in 1993, Cliff Roberts of Kentland, Ind., and a strip-till pioneer since 1987, shared his successes with strip-tilling corn.

Many growers in those days still weren't getting a favorable yield response with no-till corn, mainly because of the heavy residue. Combines weren't spreading residue far enough, which led to cold and wet seedbeds.

When no-tilling corn into soybean residue, Follmer says the soil would be so damp and cold that you could squeeze the furrow shut. Or it would open back up after the soil dried out and you could count the corn kernels you had planted 2 days earlier.

Serious About Strip-Till

In the late 1990s, the Illinois Department of Agriculture and the state's McLean County Soil and Water Conservation District were concerned about the future of no-tilled corn. They unveiled a statewide effort to increase conservation-tilled acres with a program that included research on the benefits of fall strip-tilling to overcome concerns with the cool, wet soils often found with no-till.

The department hired the Lexington, III., father and son team of Jim and Brian Kinsella to help plan ways to increase the adoption of high-residue management systems over current levels by 25% by 2005 and some 50% by 2010. 

Grants were provided to Soil and Water Conservation Districts to help farmers establish 10 tillage research and demonstration plots in highly visible areas and in a variety of soil types throughout Illinois. The plots compared strip-till, no-till and full-width tillage in corn and soybeans. 

Many of strip-till's benefits were outlined in a 2001 article in No-Till Farmer where Ohio State University ag engineer Randall Reeder indicated soil temperatures in a strip-tilled seed zone could be 6-10 F warmer on sunny spring afternoons than untilled areas between the strips. 

The areas between the strips were left untilled and covered with residue, which conserved soil moisture and reduced erosion. Eliminating full-width tillage increased soil organic matter and soil structure. 

More Uniform Emergence

In 2001, Ohio State University ag agent Alan Sundermeier analyzed 3 years of strip-till data collected from research and private farms in northwestern Ohio. He found strip-till provided a slightly quicker, more uniform plant emergence than other reduced tillage systems, although final stand counts and yields showed little or no difference. 

At the Ohio State research farm in northwest Ohio, Sundermeier and colleagues compared chisel plowing, strip-till and no-till. They buried recording thermometers to get a precise picture of soil temperature and seed emergence.

Herb-Stam.jpgMOLE KINFE. Illinois manufacturer Herb Stam developed the mole knife, which allowed strip-tillers to place fertilizer deep in fall or spring built berms.


They analyzed data for a 24-hour period on a clear day in late April, a key time for no-tilling corn in that part of Ohio. They found the strip-till seed zone was cooler at night, while the no-till and chisel-plow systems with 30%-50% residue were 5 F warmer. 

"You lose some energy with strip-till during the dark hours, but when the sun comes out, strip-till shoots right back up and bypasses the other systems," Sundermeier said. "By mid-afternoon, we saw an 8-10 F temperature difference."

Kinsella, who has no-tilled and strip-tilled for many years, considered strip-till to be a good insurance policy in cold and wet weather. As an example, Kinsella's 1996 strip-tilled corn yielded 15-22 bushels per acre more than no-tilled corn following a cold, wet spring.

Around the same time, University of Minnesota soil scientist Gyles Randall conducted a 3-year study comparing strip-till, no-till and chisel plow systems with corn. Strip-till averaged 4-6 bushels per acre more than no-till, and 1 bushel more than chisel plowing.

As it turns out, strip-till quickly caught on, new strip-till units were introduced at farm shows and the acreage increased. Some of the popularity was likely due to overcoming the psychological divide some conventional farmers faced in making the switch to no-till.

In 2007, No-Till Farmer surveyed NRCS state agronomists on strip-till corn acreage estimations. From this survey data, it was estimated that 3.6 million corn acres were strip-tilled in 2007. The biggest concentration of strip-till was in the Corn Belt with 1.7 million acres, and in the Northern Plains at 823,500 acres.

Among growers who strip-till, the average number of strip-tilled acres increased from 877 in 2013 to 1,112 acres in 2017, according to the fourth annual Strip-Till Operational Benchmark Study. Some 99% of the respondents strip-till corn, compared with 56% who strip-till soybeans.

In the 10th annual No-Till Operational Benchmark Study, strip-till corn once again yielded the best among survey participants, reaching an average 203 bushels per acre in 2017. This was 22 bushels higher than the average no-till corn yield of 181 bushels per acre.

Even as no-tilled acres increased across the U.S., strip-till also continued to gain legitimacy. No-Till Farmer's parent company, Lessiter Media, convened the first-ever National Strip-Till Conference in Cedar Rapids, lowa, in 2014, which was an instant success and is repeated annually as the world's largest gathering of strip-till minds.

Strip-till systems continued to mature, buoyed by increasing options available for GPS guidance and more sophisticated strip-till rigs designed to reduce soil loss.

Bio Strip-Till Debuts

An interesting offshoot of strip-till developed during the 2000s, as growers started to seed cover crops in strips. This let plant roots do the work of creating a seedbed for the following crop rather than relying on a shank, mole knife or coulter to build the strips.

Dubbed as bio strip-till, the practice represents an advanced way of using cover crops to improve the soil environment within the row, says Joel Gruver, an agronomist at Western Illinois University in Macomb, III. Seeding cover crops with bio strip-till started with cover-crop pioneer Steve Groff of Holtwood, Pa., who started using the concept with tillage radishes.

Ironically, it was Lisa Stocking — a University of Maryland graduate student who later married Gruver — who came up with the idea. Groff and Stocking blocked off holes in a no-till drill with 7 1/2-inch spacings to seed tillage radishes in 30-inch rows. The following spring, corn was planted into strips of alternated winter-killed radishes and Austrian winter peas. 

Soon after, David Brandt was among the first farmers to do bio strip-tilling with planters used to no-till soybeans in 15-inch row soybeans on his Carroll, Ohio, farm. Other farmers filled half of the planter boxes with radish seeds and the other half with Austrian winter peas or another cover crop species. Some planted twice, splitting the 30-inch row to create a 15-inch row spacing with RTK guidance. 

BioSTpic6VanTilburgsCornSeedlings.jpgIMPROVED SEEDBED. Building strip-till berms in the fall in an annual ryegrass cover crop leads to a much better seedbed in the spring, says Matt Van Tilburg, a Celina, Ohio, bio strip-tiller. 


'"Precision planting lets you cut seeding rates in half, due to precise spacing of the seed vs. drills," Groff says. "Going over a field twice with a planter that has a 30-inch row spacing can be economical. 

"The seed spacing with planters is generally 3-4 inches with most cover crops. We have the disc or plate-part numbers for most planters, so we can help farmers choose the right plate and settings for different size cover crop seed."

In addition to Brandt, another grower who pioneered this idea was Joe Breker of Havana, N.D. He sowed a combination of high-residue cover crops such as turnips, radishes and flax into wheat stubble with a disc drill. He also drilled peas between what would become next year's corn rows.

The cover mixes grew for 75 days before winterkilling, and corn was no-tilled into the residue the following May. He uses flax and sunflowers to support the growth of mycorrhizal fungi to help make phosphorus tied up in the soil more available for plants.

The growing organic content of Breker's soils proved a boon for more effective fertilizer management. Given the long-term no-till practiced on his land and a diverse rotation, Breker believes he's receiving an nitrogen credit of 50 pounds per acre.

Gruver credits the bio strip-tilling of radishes with three distinct benefits:

  1. Planting radishes in the same rows that will be planted to a subsequent crop may move old crop residue away from the row, which can help when no-tilling the following spring.
  2. Radish growth may accelerate the decomposition of other crop residue.
  3. Since little radish residue remains, using a burn-down herbicide is easy if the tops don't winter-kill.

"Seeding radish as a cover crop tends to improve drainage and helps the soil warm up faster," Gruver says. "Radishes winter-kill and decompose very quickly. They leave a zone of nearly bare soil, but it's soil with better aggregation and structural stability and it's not likely to crust in the spring."

Works with Manure

Decatur, Ind., strip-tiller Gene Witte has used bio-strip-tilling after wheat harvest since 2009 to grow oilseed radishes, annual ryegrass and clover. He finds spreading manure helps create a better strip-till seedbed and reduces soil compaction from liquid-manure tankers and dry manure spreaders.

The radishes winter-killed in mid-December. The following spring, the annual ryegrass took off aided by the hog manure and got out of hand because of wet weather plaguing the eastern Corn Belt. So, Witte mowed and baled the annual ryegrass and sold the hay.

"Having the cover crop get away from you in wet weather is one of the risks you take," Witte says. "We got the annual ryegrass baling done on June 14 and no-tilled Roundup Ready corn on June 16. The new growth of annual ryegrass had just started as the corn emerged."

After harvesting wheat, Witte has frost-seeded a mix of medium red clover and alsike clover before strip-tilling the field.

"I don't kill the clover until spring, when I apply a herbicide before no-tilling corn,” Witte said at the time. “With RTK, I can find the fall strips as I’m planting corn. By seeding the clover, I’m increasing the nitrogen in the soil, which the wheat crop had depleted.” 

Tried Several Options

In 2011, Matt, Luke and Kyle Van Tilburg solid seeded annual ryegrass in the fall before strip-tilling. In 2009 and 2010, the Celina, Ohio, brothers had seeded annual ryegrass into soybeans using a high-boy seeder with drop tubes. They returned with a 60-foot-wide Wil-Rich toolbar holding 24 ETS SoilWarrior strip-till units on 30-inch row spacings.

The SoilWarrior coulters killed the annual ryegrass growing in the strips. For corn following soybeans, the Van Tilburgs didn't apply phosphate or potash because enough of these nutrients are available in the poultry manure applied to the fields.

In the spring, the brothers make another shallow pass with the strip-till rig, then no-tilled corn. Several years earlier before they had started strip-tilling, the roots were so thick and tough that the "V" furrow wouldn't close. Thanks to strip-till, they capture the benefits of annual ryegrass and no-till into that nar-row-tilled strip in the spring and control wheel traffic.

The brothers say this is the best of both worlds with cover crops and no-till. They want something growing on their soil year-round.

While it's hard to quantify how much cover crops improve bio-strip-till yields, their best corn yield from the dry 2010 growing season occurred in fields where annual ryegrass had been strip-tilled.

This article is an excerpt from Frank Lessiter's book, "From Maverick to Mainstream: A History of No-Till Farming."