[Podcast] What I’ve Learned from 30 Years of Strip-Till

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On this edition of the Strip-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment, longtime strip-tiller Alan Madison shares his 8 keys to strip-till success and reveals the top takeaways from decades of on-farm trials in Walnut, Ill.

Alan Madison worked for the NRCS from 1970 to 1997, promoting no-till, strip-till and other conservation practices. He started strip-tilling his corn and soybeans in the late 1990s. Madison now strip-tills 100% of his corn-corn-soybean rotation and uses cover crops on all his acres.

 The longtime strip-tiller breaks down the key components of his strip-till system, including early harvests, fall strip-till through cereal rye, planter and strip-till toolbar attachments, the incorporation of sugars with a starter fertilizer mix, in-season chlorophyll testing and much more.

The Strip-Till Farmer podcast is brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment.

Yetter Farm Equipment has been providing farmers with solutions since 1930. Today, Yetter is your answer for finding the tools and equipment you need to face today’s production agriculture demands. The Yetter lineup includes a wide range of planter attachments for different planting conditions, several equipment options for fertilizer placement, and products that meet harvest-time challenges. Yetter delivers a return on investment and equipment that meets your needs and maximizes inputs. Visit them at yetterco.com.

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Full Transcript

Hey, great to have you with us for another edition of the Strip-Till Farmer Podcast. I'm your host, Noah Newman, technology editor. Big thanks once again to our sponsor Yetter Farm Equipment for making this series possible. All right, today we are visiting with longtime strip-tiller Alan Madison, who shares his eight keys to strip-till success and reveals some of the top takeaways from decades of on-farm trials in Walnut, Illinois. He'll break down the key components of his system, including early harvests, false strip-till through cereal rye, planter and strip-till toolbar attachments, the incorporation of sugars with a starter fertilizer mix, in-season chlorophyll testing, and much, much more. Let's dive into the conversation, here's Alan.

We're about 2000 acres now. At our max we were 3,500. But we grow corn and soybeans. Two years of corn, a year of soybeans, and we strip-till for both corn and soybeans.

So 100% strip-till on all your acres?

100% strip-till. Yep.

And how long have you been doing that for?

Well, a little bit of my history, I actually worked for SCS NRCS for 27 years, from like 1970 to 1997. So in there, in the early '80s around here, very early '80s, no till, we were just promoting within RCS, we were promoting... It was actually SCS then, no-till at that time. We got guys to buy into that. And so I started farming in '79 here. So in the early '80s, we started no-tilling here, and by mid '80s we were no-tilling both corn and soybeans. And then we transitioned to strip-till in the late '90s, early 2000, and I just got a DMI anhydrous bar and we would make the strips. We didn't put on anything, anhydrous or any dry fertilizer, I was just making the strips. Because we could see an advantage yield wise, especially corn on corn, making that strip. And then eventually, by 2013, '14, then we started... I got that unit, that Deere... I had some Krause units for a couple years before that, eight rows.

The Gladiators?

Yeah. Yeah. I think back in 2003 was the first year I had them. But then by 2014, I got that John Deere one, and then we went to putting the fertilizer in the strip with that.

So how did you first hear about strip-till or decide that it was the way to go? I know we have some strip-till Hall of Famers in Illinois, Kinsella and Falmer. Did you hook up with them at all or?

When I worked for NRCS, and I was in LaSalle County in the '70s and early '80s, Mike McKeague, who worked for... Got out of college and went to work for BASF, him and I pulled this seven foot tie drill around, and the first year I think we got five farmers to do maybe 20 acres with it. We were just getting plots out. That was the days of Basagran and Blazer and Post. So Kinsella worked for BASF at that time too. So I've known him back since the '80s. So that was connection there. We took groups of farmers down there to his field days and that kind of stuff.

Yeah, I've heard stories about his field days, how he'd host a ton of people and teach them about no-till and then eventually strip-till.

Right.

So what are some of the challenges you dealt with here with no-till that made you want to switch to strip-till? Was it just a matter of wanting to push those corn yields a little bit or?

The soil temperature thing, the allelopathic effect. We just had... Especially corn on corn, it compete with conventional once we did that strip. Because I was two years corn, a year of soybeans. So that second year planting in them corn stalks straight no-till, there was some issues with getting good stands and just the overall cooler wetter effect that you had some springs.

And then tell me about your strip-till rig. So it's John Deere. Is it coulter, shank, or?

It's shank. Yeah, it's a Shank. It's kind of a mule knife type of deal in the shank. And of course there's a row cleaner ahead of the shank, then the closing disc behind that.

And you're making all your strips in the fall?

Yes. Pretty consistently able to get them all done in the fall.

All in the fall. And then about how deep are you usually making your strips?

Well, we started out eight, nine inches. And of course, 12-row unit took a lot of horsepower and I had a 340 Case IH 340 horsepower tractor and it was all it wanted to do to... In fact, we put a chip on it to get a little more horsepower and we added weight to the rear end to get traction. But since then, we're more in the five, six inches deep. We didn't see any advantage to putting that fertilizer that deep. We actually wanted it a little closer to the seed.

Excuse me. So are you applying fertilizer with the strip-tail rig or are you just applying all your nutrients in the spring?

No, we're applying the P and the K. For the last three, four years or so, we've been using MESZ, so there's some sulfur and zinc.

The MicroEssentials pack?

Yeah, in that product, and then potash. Sometimes we put some urea in there, especially like corn on corn. Because the other thing that we've been doing for 10 years now is we do a cover crop, rye cover crop, on everything too, every year. So we've got corn following corn where there's that rye cover crop. And of course corn following beans though, where there's that rye cover crop and people... That's a little harder to do with the rye there and the effect of that rye on the corn. But if you supplement enough nitrogen up front, then we don't seem to have any problems with it.

And so in the spring, when you're ready to plant, what kind of planter do you use and what kind of fertility are you applying with the planter on your planter pass?

So we strip 12 rows and we plant 16. I've got a Case IH planter. It's a 2000 Series Case IH planter.

Case IH and John Deere. So you have a little bit of both, a little bit of everything.

Yeah.

Not biased towards anyone.

Yeah. So we put starter fertilizer. And before I had the Case IH planter, I had a White planter and it had starter fertilizer and we were two-by-two then. Well then when I went to the Case IH, that planter, I bought it used. Just had pop-up. We're putting 10340, usually three, maybe three and a half gallons of 10340. Quarter zinc, which we've been using zinc in the starter for 40 years. And then we were using a MicroAZ. It's a root enhancement product. And then a AVAIL T5, which is a phosphorus enhancer uptake, increase the uptake of phosphorus. And a pound of sugar.

A pound of sugar. Yeah, I've heard some strip tillers using the sugar. What kind of impact has that had for you?

Well, if you look at other products that they're trying to get you to use, ADM has got a product, a number of different companies, they're usually a glucose or a fructose or... So it's a sugar. Molasses. It's really a sugar product. It's providing energy for the microbes. And sugar, well, it used to be 50 cents a pound, now it's up to like 69 cents a pound, compared to $4 or $5 for some of these other products.

And so what form does it come in? You just go to the store?

Sugar.

It's just straight sugar? You just buy it and you just throw it in your-

Yeah, I go to Rural King or Costco, wherever I can find the cheapest bag of sugar. And then we'll put it in a tote, like 200 gallons of water and we'll put 200 pounds in there, and then we'll put the zinc in there too. And once you slurry it up, it doesn't salt out. It stays in solution. Once it's in solution, it stays in solution. So, yeah.

Yeah. It looks like I got a little bit ahead of myself. You gave me this checklist of eight strip-till steps to boost yields, and your first step is soil test and use variable rate technology. So tell me a little bit about your process there with step one.

Well, just the idea that when you take soil tests, and I'm kind of... I've progressed to taking soil tests now to just one acre. And it's amazing, one acre compared to even two and a half, how much difference in that distance where that one acre sample is. If you overlay... I have the Ag Leader SMS mapping program, so I can overlay soil test or whatever I want. If you take one soil test and overlay the other one that's, say, on an acre basis versus two and a half, it's like holy cow. Like pH, there might be half a point or so difference where them points aren't that far apart from taking it on two and a half versus. So it's trying to... Especially lime, I think you can variable rate lime and even that pH out the easiest. Now P and K, they're a little different critters. Trying to actually bring them into a same kind of rates values, that's pretty tough to do.

So do your P and K rates-

That's pretty tough to do.

So do your P&K rates vary significantly each year? What are your approximate rates that you're applying with the strip-till rig?

Strip-till rig, we're usually 75% less than what maybe if we broad cast. So a lot of times we're in, like for corn, maybe 100, 125 of P1 phosphorus, pounds of phosphorus. And then on the K'S we might be 150 to 200 and maybe even a little higher than that. So we have a harder time keeping the K tests up compared to our phosphorus test.

Gotcha. And then the second step on your checklist here is check compaction, deep-till or subsoil to get rid of compaction. So tell me a little bit about that.

Well, a lot of guys transitioning from their chisel plow system or maybe they're like vertical tilling a bunch or something like that. So you just kind of need to see if there's a restrictions zone in there before you commit yourself to strip-till. And get that eliminated, break that up and then you go to the strip-till. You got to give yourself at least three years of the system. And kind of the same way with rye as a cover crop in the system, you got to give it three years at least to finally improve that soil structure and health and all that.

Funny you say that, because I actually just recently got an email from a strip-tiller saying he didn't see the biggest yield jump after doing strip-till for a year. And he was curious, well, should I keep doing it? And as you're saying, it might take more than a year depending on where you are.

Well, two years ago we had a dry spell in May and where I had corn on corn and we had rye cover crop, that stuff looked terrible. It was stunted, it was yellow, it was like, "Well this isn't good at all. You know, this is not going to be..." Well then we got rain like the very end of June, we got some rain and before that I had pulled soil samples a foot deep in the row and between the row and testing for nitrogen because it looked like it was nitrogen deficient. That's what the plants looked like. Well I got the test back and it was like 50 pounds or more in the row available and more than 200 between the rows. So it was there, the plant just wouldn't get to it. Well it rained and then the rest of the season we were fine. It came out of that. It ended up to be some of our best corn.

No kidding.

But a look, you wouldn't have given.

I bet that shocked you.

Yeah, yeah. Because I told a lot of guys, I said, "Well..." Because we, like I say, had been doing this for years and years and years. It was kind of the first year that it really looked that ugly and I was going, "Well, you know, we'll see what happens, but I don't think it's going to be as good as just our other, like corn following soybeans and that kind of stuff." But like I say, it came out some of our best corn.

So going back to the cereal rye cover crop, where does that fit into this checklist? When are you applying the cereal rye? How are you applying it and how much?

As soon as we get done combining and then we'll, see that picture up there, we're just broad casting-

Oh yeah.

... with a, it's called a pendulum spreader. So we can broad cast like we're running 10 mile an hour and it spreads 40 feet, holds enough for like 40 acres at a time. So two, three hours you can spread 80 acres. So as soon as we get done harvesting the next day or something, either early in the morning or sometime, we try to get every field spread right away. And it just depends on the fall. You can see what it was that was like two years ago, those acres. We got that much growth on it and then usually it's a month later after we spread it and harvest when we come back and make the strips.

Oh, I see. So you're probably usually making strips in what, November?

Yeah, and we're spreading 40 to 50 pounds an acre.

And how are you terminating the cereal rye, with glyphosate or?

Yeah.

Where you plant green?

Not corn. I like to make sure we maybe 10 days get it killed ahead of that. Beans, if I don't have enough growth on it or something, then we might plant the beans and then spray it afterwards. But corn, you can have some problems if you plant it and then kill it right after you planted it. I just had some bad experience. So we just don't do that. And we spray like glyphosate and AMS, maybe some 24D in there or something like that, separate from any... We don't put the other chemicals in it because if you do, usually, depending on what the products are you're using, it'll burn that rye back and that Roundup won't totally get in the plant and it'll turn yellow and look like it's going to die and then all of a sudden it just greens right back up.

So resilient.

And it's like two weeks after you sprayed it, you know, it's like, "Oh, it's going to die. It's going to die. Oh no, it's not going to die."

Oh no.

But if you just spray the Roundup, but you want temperatures at night to be at least 45, 50 and 60 degrees or so in the daytime. If you can get that for a day or two after you spray it, you're fine. If it gets colder later, that's okay, it takes it up. But if you spray it when it's pretty cool out and getting close to freezing at night it could be a problem.

So you kind of just play it by ear. Every year is different. Do you keep an eye on moisture and-

Yeah.

... temperature?

Because we have our own sprayer, so that's... You know.

What kind of sprayer do you have?

We have a Hagie.

Hagie. Okay.

So we spray our fungicide with the Hagie and everything, on the corn, you know, and...

Well step four on this eight step list is use starter fertilizer, 25 to 30 units of nitrogen or band fertilizer when stripping. So I think you kind of covered that earlier. And then how much nitrogen are you putting on if you band it with the strip-till rig?

Sometimes like 40 pounds of urea. So that's, what, 46%? Right. So you're getting maybe 20 pounds there. And we're getting with our three, three and a half gallon of 1034, we're getting like eight units there or so. So somewhere close to 30 units that way. And then we've started in our after planting and before the corn emerges in our pre-emergence herbicide program, we'll put some 32% in there too.

Step number five has to do with your planner. So tell me about your planner, everything you have on it to kind of maximize your chance of success.

We got the roll cleaners, which we can adjust the pressure on the roll cleaners, and then the regular Case-IH disc openers and gauge wheels. We got Downforce on the planter and then the closing wheels are the Yetter spike closing wheels. That closing disc, we can vary the pressure on that closing disc to the Case-IH planter. And then the spike closing wheels are behind that.

Do you have a lot of precision technology on your planter?

Well, the Downforce and being able to adjust the row cleaners and the down pressure on the... I'm going to say yes. We go through the planter every year in the shop. Well then I went to a couple of precision planning meetings, so it's like, well maybe we need to get that back in and check. They're talking about the disc openers, you get new disc openers and they actually got a little wave wobble in them, you know?

Yeah, I've heard about that.

Yeah, so they're talking like, "Why you get three, two disc openers? You might have to go through 100 to come up with 32 that are right." And then of course, making sure you got your depth control set clear across the planter on each row unit, right. And getting the closing wheels in the back lined up. And we usually try to do all that, but it's like, "Well maybe we'll just look at that a little more."

Yeah, I went to one of those precision planning conferences. They tell you a lot of information that's kind of eyeopening, things you probably don't think about. So then do you take your planter in for a checkup or maintenance every off season or?

Well, we do all the maintenance, but I do take the planter units up to a precision planning guy and he calibrates them every year.

Looking for innovative solutions to maximize your farm's productivity? Look no further than Yetter farm equipment. We're dedicated to providing farmers with the highest quality equipment from row cleaners and closing wheels to fertilizer equipment, strip-till units and stock devastators. Yetter has the tools you need to optimize your farming operation. Visit tetterco.com to learn more and find a dealer near you. That's Y-E-T-T-E-R-C-O.com. Now back to the podcast. Step number six is you have down side-dress nitrogen or supplement nitrogen if needed. So do you test in season or how do you determine what you're going to apply-

Well every year we side dress and usually that's like the end of May, the first week of June. The corn is not very big when we side-dress, but in every field we put what we call a high rate strip. So we side-dress our normal rate, which might be 125, 135 units, and then this high rate strip will be 50 units higher than that. So then at like V10, we take a chlorophyll reading, we've got a SPAD meter. You just go out there and clip it on the leaf and get a chlorophyll reading. So you go to that high rate strip and you see what that chlorophyll reading is. Then you go to the other parts of the field where you got your normal rate and you see how much difference you have and it's kind of a percentage, what you're looking for there. And if it's three or 4% or so below the high rate strip, then you probably-

The high rate strip, then you probably should put some more on. We do that with our hagi and drops.

Y drops?

Y drops, yeah. Yeah. That system, which I've been doing for 20 to 30 years, using that chlorophyll, I've tried some other techniques to evaluate nitrogen, but the chlorophyll reading one is like 80% right.

That's interesting. I don't know if I've ever heard of anyone doing that before. How'd you come across that method?

Well, that method has been around, but the problem is you're doing it V10 and it's 89 degrees out there, see in the corn, and nobody, I get these grandkids that I send out and I used to do it myself, and then-

They probably enjoy it.

Yeah, but it's not a nice job because in the morning the plants are all wetter than heck, so you get soaked in the afternoon, you're just, it's hotter than heck and yeah, but it is consistently accurate.

You're finding that late in the season, usually your corn crop needs a little bit extra to get to the finish line?

Corn on corn, more so than corn and beans still. Now, last year, which we had a pretty good ideal growing season, for the most part, that extra units of 50 when we side dressed was better than Y dropping 30, 40 units later in the season at V10, which I didn't think it would be, because normally, like I say, if we Y drop, a lot of times it's corn on corn, it'll consistently give us a five to 10 bushel yield increase, but it didn't last year

Late in the season, as we get to step number seven here, it says plant ahead, plant early season varieties and combine early.

Well, and I made this up in 2013. I've kind of gone away from that a little bit, but the idea there is if you're going corn on corn, you need to get that an earlier season corn out there to get it combined earlier and let it start to break down, decompose. I mean, that's the idea With that earlier season that you can.

What kind of combine do you have?

A Case IH.

Case IH

70.

You're usually trying to harvest what, early October?

Well, we got a continuous flow dryer, so we will start when the corn is 28%, and that's 20th September, a lot of times, so late September, we'll be combining.

The final step is you make a note to use proper strip-till equipment to make strips. We've talked about your strip-till rig a little bit, but just reinforce that idea, just how important equipment is.

Yeah. Like I say, when I started, I just had this DMI anhydrous bar, and you wasn't making much of a strip. It didn't have much of a mound to it. It wasn't very wide. That's kind of the secret, especially with the cover crop thing. We're going out there a month after we seed the rye. We make that strip, and so then it kind of gets that cover crop rye out of the zone that we're going to plant into. You're making it wide enough, so in the spring it's a nice seed bed to plant. I mean, it's compared to chisel plowing and corn stalks or something and planting, it's just a lot better deal than the seed bed itself. It's just a lot nicer. I mean, it looks, when you do it and you get ready to plant, you think, "Oh man, this might look kind of ugly. I'm not sure," but boy, once you plant through it and you go back there and do a little digging, it's just mellow.

Well, when you're making the strips after you seed the cover crops, I'd have to imagine that it's pulverizing any cover crop that could be in a strip so you don't have to worry about it competing with the corn crop.

Right. Well, you can see what it does there. It pretty well you're tilling a zone there where you're getting rid of it.

What are the biggest benefits of the cover crop erosion control, nutrient scavenging, or what would you say?

Yeah.

Weed control?

I mean, we started out, it was erosion control, and now, of course, we're talking about this nutrient uptake. The biggest thing is nobody can tell you for sure, at least I haven't found anybody in all the different universities, whatever, exactly when that rye releases those nutrients that it took up, especially nitrogen. Everybody says it's late in the season. It's usually later than what you would want it to be, to be beneficial. In my case, one, my arguments is, well, we're putting rye out there every year, so it's continuous. It's just continuously taking stuff up and then breaking down later in the summer/fall. We kind of got a cycle going. When you look at the soil health, I've tried a lot of these biologicals and I can't get them really to respond the way they tell you, you're going to get five bushels or whatever. I can can't get that to happen. Most of our soils are pretty good. Silt, loam, silty clay loam soil. We've got some sand ridges here and stuff. Soil health is really pretty good. To me, those microbes are working. They're breaking down the soil and releasing the nutrients. Some of those other things just don't work for me.

Yeah. You hear one of the big reasons why people don't get started with cover crops is because that expense, but you're saying the cover crop will eventually pay for itself and then some after a couple of years though, not right away.

Right, and the other thing, I mean, we grow 10 to 15 acres of rye that we combine for seed.

Oh, okay.

We always have enough seed for at least 1,000 acres.

That helps a lot. Definitely. Does any of this change ahead of soybeans in terms of your strip till methods? Are you still saying strip till?

No, I mean, we're not putting as much phosphorus in the strip. We're usually maybe 50 pounds of Mez or something like that, but we're putting a pop-up on that soybeans.

What's in the pop-up? Is it nitrogen?

Well, typically not any nitrogen, but we put the MicroAZ in that AVAIL T5. We're also putting a fungicide and an insecticide, like a Bifen and an Azoxy, cheap, what I would call a cheap fungicide, insecticide in that starter, pound sugar and the zinc.

Gotcha. I've interviewed a lot of people that will strip till all their corn, but maybe they'll still no-till their soybeans. For you, what's the advantage of strip tilling soybeans?

Better stands, we're only planting 110, and maybe we could be a little less than that. You get better stands. 110 population, it's consistently out yielded my 15-inch rows. We made comparisons for three years, and it was just some cases it was 10 bushel better than.

Wow, that's significant.

Yeah. Yeah.

You're 30-inch soybeans now everywhere?

Yeah.

And 30-inch corn?

Yeah.

Same planter for soybeans and corn?

Yep. Yep, so we plant soybeans first, and we've done that for at least 10 years.

Late March, early April or March might be too early?

20th of April.

Okay. Yeah.

15th, somewhere after the 15th, 20. A lot of times between the 20th and the 25th is when we're trying to plant them.

Have you ever tried any of the high yield contests or anything?

Well, yeah. I got involved with Stoller's, like I think it's been four or five years ago, and we did the whole program. This guy, he is from Cedar Rapids, and he would come by every couple of weeks and look at the field and it was like, "Oh, this thing is going to make 100 bushels, man, these are really good." Well, it made 85 or something like that, which at that time, yeah, they were good beans, but they weren't ... That was, we were 15-inch rows then. Well, in the last three years we've had a lot of 95 bushel beans.

Wow. Under your normal management program?

Yeah. Yeah.

So it's working.

Yes. Yeah. I can't complain.

How do your corn yields kind of stack up to the average, would you say?

As good, yeah, they're as good as anybody else. I mean, here, if you look at all them above you there.

Oh, I see here. Yeah. There's [inaudible 00:35:11].

All that was on the top there. Those was our plot that we had with Pioneer wiffles and some other-

You've reached 300 bushels many times.

I told a guy the other day, if you look at some of these plaques, some of them were in the early 2000 and they were a little over 200 bushel, and that was like 2002 or something. Now in 2024, we're over 300, so by 2040 we ought to be over 400 bushel.

You would think so. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and you hear about the David Hulas of the world reaching the 600 bushels and the Alex Harrell strip selling soybeans in Georgia, 200 bushels, soybeans. Whoo.

Yeah.

They were getting up there.

Yeah.

... bushel soybeans. Whoo.

Yeah.

So they were getting up there.

Yeah. I've heard them both speak. Now, this year, my understanding Dowdy's going to have a plot in Michigan.

I've read about that. That's very interesting.

Yeah. Because everybody's telling him, "Well, yeah, you can do that down there in the Georgia soil and plant it and then it'll be up in two or three days or whatever, but you can't do that in the Midwest."

I bet he'll find a way to do it.

Yeah.

Knowing him, he'll pull it off, I bet.

It'll be interesting to hear his story on it.

Yeah. Yeah, I enjoy listening to those guys. They always have some interesting stories to tell and strategies. It seems like they help a lot of people out across the country.

Yeah.

All right, so what would you say is one of your biggest strip-till lessons learned? When you started strip-tilling, maybe something that you could share that could help some people listening or reading our articles who are thinking about getting into strip-till. A potential landmine, if you will, to kind of look out for.

Well, the biggest thing I guess is making that strip in the fall, and especially corn and corn stalks, that you got to right unit that's going to go through 300-bushel corn stalks and maybe you only combined them a week. That's the last field you combine, and now here you are trying to strip that field and it's 300 bushel or better residue, and trying to get that unit to go through there without plugging up once in a while. So that's probably the biggest challenge.

I know guys that... We've got quite a few guys in our area that's got this John Deere and there's a number of guys that got Krause and they all can have problems, especially you go out in the morning, the stalks are damp, wet, cool. They're liable to give you a little fetch. You might have to wait until they dry off just a little bit, some cases, but-

So a little patience might go a long way.

Yeah, a little patience and, like I say, make sure you got the right... Everything's set right on your unit and...

And a lot of that probably goes back to just getting people to help you, right? Consulting with people, getting some help from the experts.

Right. Right.

I meant to ask you this, so are there any challenges to strip-tilling in 12 rows and planting in 16 rows? How'd you kind of decide on that?

Well, yes, there is challenges. We started out, we were stripping eight, plant 16. I think initially, we were stripping eight and planting 12. Then we went to 16 row planter, then we went to 12 row stripping and 16 row planter.

So yeah, it's not a perfect world. Like three years ago, we went to a Trimble system that has the receiver back on the implement, talks to the tractor. And when that's working right, I think it does pretty good. But we've had some challenges with the system itself not working, the receiver not getting a signal. But that's kind of a whole separate issue. But for the most part, with the GPS, the auto-steer, you can do a pretty good job. And you definitely, you'll see the difference when you're not on that strap.

So we're sitting here in about the middle of March. So what's kind of on your to-do list now? Just kind of getting ready for planting season here in mid-April?

Yeah. Now, on soybeans, we've been doing some work with sulfur. And last year, we put some sulfur out the middle of... AMS, we broadcast spread with that unit there. We broadcast spread 80 pounds an acre of AMS. So we were getting 20-some pounds of sulfur out there. And depending on who you listen to, that one of the guys from Purdue is pretty good advocate of spreading that AMS early on the soybeans and make sure that sulfur's there and stuff.

So we spread 20 acres in four different fields, so 80 acres altogether. Well, then we got a fair amount of rain actually last year in April and some early part of May, like five to six inches. So sulfur's pretty mobile. So I did some testing where we'd spread it, where we haven't. Foot deep, pulled samples. Well, it ended up, there wasn't that much difference in the sulfur test where we'd spread that 80 pounds of what we had.

So I came back and spread another 20 acres, half of what I'd spread the first time. So there was 10 acres that was doubled up, had 160 pounds on it. Then there was another 10 acres that had just the regular 80 pounds later in the season and 80 pounds earlier in the season. When we get it all said and done, it didn't pay. It didn't matter when you did it.

Interesting.

Yeah. So I go back to this, the soil health and just what's going on with the microbes and all that because there's plenty of nutrients there if they just get available.

Right. So you're saying that since you've increased your soil health, you might not have to spend as much money on the extra inputs?

Yeah. Now, this year we're working with the Illinois Soybean Association and we're going to spread spray Thio-Sul on in strips in two different fields, 20-acre areas. So there'll be 20 acres with the product and like 30 units of sulfur in that Thio-Sul that we're going to spread on.

So it sounds like you do a lot of on-farm trials. Pretty much every year, do you have some kind of trial going on?

Yeah. Well, we do variety plots, corn and beans both, and then we're doing population plots on corn or beans both, like what they call a random block study. And we do these high-rate strips and the side dressing. And we do fungicide strips, either spray the whole field with fungicide and leave a strip or just spray a strip and evaluate that, so yeah.

What have you found out from the population studies? Are you pushing your corn populations? I know you said your soybean populations we're about 110

110.

But with corn, what are you doing there?

Most the part, we're 34,000. We were higher than that probably four or five years ago. But we've seen, I don't know, the varieties just seemed to respond more, more flex in the ear. You're getting deeper kernels, heavier test weights, that kind of thing. So pushing that population, depending on the variety, doesn't help you.

And then fungicide, are you finding out that that's very beneficial for yield?

Well, we've been doing this fungicide strip thing for four or five years. Three years ago and two years ago, we sprayed everything and left strips and it didn't pay. This year we decided, we went out there and we're doing this brown silk time. There was absolutely no disease. If you walk fields around here, you couldn't find any gray leaf spot or northern or tar spot. There just wasn't any disease.

So we just sprayed the strips this year. Well, lo and behold, it paid 10 to maybe 20 bushel advantage to the fungicide this year. Where it didn't pay the last two years, it paid this year. Now, the only thing I can account it to is we got that dry weather late August, September. And whether it made that plant just a little healthier longer in the season, enough for that put on a little more yield.

Interesting. 10 to 20 bushels, that's a lot.

Yeah, there wasn't disease.

Any other on-farm trials over the years that have changed your standard practices?

Well, starter fertilizer is another one that, depending on the year, it might pay and it might not. But it's one that we kind of have decided we're going to do that. And we're putting in some other things in the starter than we used to-

Like the sugars.

Yeah, the sugars and the MicroAZ for the roots and the Avail for the phosphorus uptake and some of those things.

Hey, that's the only way to improve is the test things out, right? See what works, what doesn't.

Yeah, and what-

And biologicals, you haven't had much luck with, it sounds like.

No. And I've tried organics and some of those different ones and no, I just haven't... But I know guys that swear by them.

Yes. I guess it depends on where you are and what's going on in your soil. It's different everywhere you go.

Right. Right.

All right, that'll wrap things up. Big thanks to Alan for letting me drop by as he gets ready for another busy planting season. Also want to say thanks to our sponsor, Yetter Farm Equipment, for making this series possible. And for previous episodes, head to striptillfarmer.com. And hey, check out the Strip-Till Conference program. It is out on strip-tillconference.com. We also have early registration rates underway as well. Shoot me an email, nnewman@lessitermedia.com if you have any questions about the program or event, which takes place July 31st and August 1st in beautiful Coralville, Iowa, right outside of Iowa City.

All right, thanks for tuning in. I'll see you next time on the Strip-Till Farmer Podcast.