According to USDA’s Sept. 23 Crop Progress report, 7% of corn has been harvested, but few growers in the big corn states have taken their combines out the shed. Meanwhile, soybeans still have a lot of catching up to do. Overall, the condition of both crops is little changed from the past few weeks.

In this episode of the Strip-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by Topcon Agriculture, we're joined by Streator, Ill., strip-tiller Larry Tombaugh who shares his strip-till origins and a detailed look at some of the ways he supplements his system with biological additives to improve soil health and yields.

Corn in the dough stage improved from last week’s rate of 89% to 93% as of Sept. 15. This still remains behind the corn in the dough stage percentage from Sept. 15, 2018 of 99% and the 5 year average of 98%.

Streator, Ill., strip-tiller Larry Tombaugh shares his front-to-back setup of his 1994 12-row John Deere 7200 vac planter and explains some of the modifications to his row units to include trimming down his spike wheels to accommodate softer soils and the addition of Precision Planting's RowFlow seed rate sensing tool.

We all know that one of the potential benefits of using cover crops is weed suppression, but do you know how cover crops actually provide weed suppression? There are a couple of ways: through blocking sunlight from reaching weed seeds, and also allelopathy, as the cover crop plants produce a chemical that reduces weed seed germination.

In this episode of the Strip-Till Farmer podcast, brought to you by Topcon Agriculture, we share excerpts from my conversations from Farm Progress on what strip-tillers should consider in terms of compaction when getting into the field for fall harvest.

While corn in the dough stage improved from 71% a week ago to 81% as of Sept. 1, the crop continues to trail last year’s development for this date, which was 95%, as well as the 5 year average of 93%. Corn dented is even further behind, with only 41% of this year’s crop at this stage vs. 73% last year on this date and 5 year average of 63%.

The latest Crop Progress report from USDA shows a small improvement in the condition of both corn and soybean crops as of Aug. 25. But, as expected, both remain significantly behind both last year's and the 5 year average when it comes to pace of development.

The 50-year-old owner and CEO of Exapta Solutions, and former No-till on the Plains board member, was a well-known no-till educator and consultant across the Great Plains and the entire U.S.

Some farm leases are not written, but are verbal or "handshake" agreements. Because nothing is in writing, the parties may have different recollections of their agreement, making lease disputes more difficult to resolve. The most common legal issue associated with verbal farm leases is how a lease may legally be terminated. Find out more about how to handle this sticky situation in this article from University of Nebraska Extension.