I’m in the process of analyzing the results of Strip-Till Farmer's 2022 Strip-Till Benchmark Study, and there is so much useful data! We highlight the major, most important findings in our summer issue of Strip-Till Farmer (check out the 2021 highlights here), but there’s always more than we can fit on just 4 pages.
In my next few blog posts, I’m featuring some of the data from our survey that won’t make it into the 2022 summer issue. This week, the focus is on what crops farmers are strip-tilling.
To give you an idea of who responded to this 2022 survey, most farmers are in the Corn Belt (63%), followed by about 21% in the Plains/West. More than half of the respondents have been strip-tilling for 10 years or less, and 72% farm 2,000 acres or less.
Just over 26% of respondents strip-till crops in addition to/other than corn and soybeans. Their strip-tilled crops include:
- Bananas
- Buckwheat
- Canola
- Cereal rye
- Chinese red peas
- Cotton
- Dry edible beans
- Forage sorghum sudangrass
- German millet
- Grain sorghum
- Grapes
- Green beans
- Guanabanana
- Laredo soybeans
- Lima beans
- Oats
- Medicinal herbs
- Milo
- Passionfruit
- Pinto beans
- Plantains
- Popcorn
- Pumpkins
- Rye
- Sugarbeets
- Sugarcane
- Sunflowers
- Sweet corn
- Vegetables
- Winter barley
- Winter brassica for livestock
- Winter wheat
- Wheat
What crops other than corn and soybeans are you strip-tilling? Let me know in the comments below.
To get a first look at our major results — like average corn and soybean yields in 2021, strip specs, most popular strip-till toolbars and more — sign up for Strip-Till Farmer’s free 2022 Benchmark Study webinar. Jerry Hatfield, retired director of the National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment, will join me as a panelist to give his advice on some of the popular practices identified in the study and answer your questions about implementing them on your operation.
Register for the webinar here.
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