Every time Otwell, Ind., strip-tiller Chris Perkins breaks the 300-bushel barrier, a framed vintage DeKalb seed bag goes up on his office walls, showing the year, hybrid type and yield number. He’s running out of wall space. Five bags currently hang like retired jerseys in the rafters of a basketball arena, each representing a significant milestone and learning experience.

“This field wound up averaging 317 bushels per acre, but the end rows murdered us on that one,” Perkins says, as he points to one of the bags. “If you took the end rows away, the field averaged over 347 bushels per acre. That tells you how much damage you do by constantly going in and making applications. My wife came up with the idea of hanging up the vintage bags. They’re neat keepsakes and remind us of what we did and how we did it.”

Perkins will soon add another keepsake to his office — a plaque with the words “2024 Strip-Till Innovator” on it, an award he’s been working toward since he started strip-tilling almost a decade ago. He earned it by challenging conventional corn-growing wisdom in an area where strip-till was mostly a foreign concept and developing a systems-approach banding program capable of boosting yields by over 60 bushels per acre.

“It’s a huge honor, and you have no idea how much this award means to a lot of people, not just me,” Perkins says. “It’s not hard to look good when you have good people surrounding you.”

…