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.

Visiting with several strip-tillers in Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan recently, they were willing to showcase off the early emergence of their corn. 'Green and growing' was the diagnosis for most of the strip-tilled fields we walked, with a healthy amount of decomposing cornstalk or soybean residue in between the rows.