Fall after harvest is an excellent time for soil sampling and testing. This year, with lower grain prices, many growers may be looking for places to cut costs. However, cutting back on soil testing could result in lowering profits.

David Legvold, strip-tiller in Northfield, Minn., talks about how he's incorporated data management and soil sampling into his strip-till operation to improve accuracy of nutrient application and save fertilizer costs.

Change isn't always an easy sell to farmers who have relied on the same methodology for years or even decades, especially if they've had success. Farmers tend to rely on the two T's -- tillage and tradition, Minnesota strip-tiller David Legvold told me during a recent visit to his farm. In my opinion, you need to shift away from the traditional, and from practices that are damaging the soil.

After reading recent questions from readers of Strip-Till Strategies about soil-sampling procedures and nitrogen credits -- as well as nitrogen rates in strip-tilled corn following soybeans - Orthman Mfg. Co. lead agronomist Mike Petersen offered some recommendations.

Cameron Mills has been collecting yield data with his John Deere combine for years and has now put that data to work saving him money.

A University of Nebraska study says that banding nitrogen with strip-till has little effect on sugarbeets vs. broadcasting it.

Banding fertilizer may cause non-uniform distribution in the soil and strip-tillers may need to take this into account when soil sampling, says University of Illinois crop-science educator Fabian Fernandez.