In November of 2017, a long-time Corn Belt no-tiller came upon a shocking scene: One of his no-till fields was being chisel plowed by a misinformed tractor driver, working for a multi-thousand acre operator who thought the field was among some of his newly rented ground.

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.