Kevin Kennedy has shaken things up on his 3,200-acre farm in Walnut, Ill., over the last few years. He switched from conventional tillage to strip-tilled corn 3 years ago and did the same for soybeans last year.

Building on the success of the inaugural event in 2014 the 2nd annual National Strip-Tillage Conference, held Aug. 5-6, featured more than 20 presentations and 30 roundtable discussions. The event, held in Iowa City, Iowa, brought together a diverse group of top strip-tillers, consultants and researchers who shared experience-based tips and techniques that both veteran and recent adopters of strip-till can put to work immediately in their operations.

Farming in Princeton, Ill., with his sons, Nick and Ben, Jim Rapp re-adopted strip-tilling about 4 years ago, after a brief trial in the 1990s prior to the development and widespread adoption of GPS navigation.

In some respects, strip-tillers who band fertilizer in their strips enjoy a distinct advantage in terms of nitrogen (N) management over other tillage practices. After an exceptionally rainy spring, many farmers throughout the country may be starting to worry about N that may have washed away.

In spring 2015, Jim Kucera's Ashland, Neb., farm had been deluged with heavy rains. The same was true for many Nebraska farmers faced with delayed planting, severe ponding and in some cases, replanting. Kucera certainly felt the pinch, but he says it's not nearly as bad as it would have been if he didn't switch to strip-till on his 700 acres of corn and 600 acres of soybeans about 5 years ago.

The Book family, who farms about 2,400 acres in Harvard and Union, Ill., make use of a variety of tillage methods. They no-till acreage 16 miles from their primary operation because the soils are sandy and the organic matter is only around 2%. On their corn-on-corn acres with heavy residue and sometimes close to 20% organic matter, they vertical till and chisel plow. However, they get their best results from the 600 acres of first-year corn that they strip-till.

When visiting with strip-tillers, I'm finding it more common to see a rainbow of equipment colors roaming the field, as farmers leverage the flexibility of precision technology in diverse fleets of machinery.

Many farmers who convert to strip-till from a conventional-tillage system often laud the benefits of improved soil structure and savings on fuel and labor. For Michael, Kyle and George Cornelissen, who have 28 years of no-tilling behind them, they adopted strip-till for entirely different reasons.