David Legvold is many things: a Strip-Till Innovator and Hall of Famer, a teacher, a student and, of course, a farmer. For over 40 years, he’s farmed in Northfield, Minn., alongside his wife, Ruth, and sons Mike and Mark. Both the Legvold sons became teachers in the footsteps of their father, and it’s this connection to education that seems to have shaped the family’s outlook on farming. Legvold approaches all aspects of farming as an opportunity for experimentation, and for the past 2 decades he’s directed that curiosity towards strip-till.

2-Year Plan

Current operations on Legvold Farms can be viewed as a 2-year cycle. In the fall, after soybean harvest, a cereal rye cover crop is planted with a 25-foot no-till drill. In the spring, when the rye comes up, a 5-inch-wide by 8-inch-deep zone is tilled and fertilized with 40 pounds of nitrogen (N), plus phosphorous (P), zinc, sulfur, and potash, air injected into the strip. Corn is then planted green into the rye, which is later chemically terminated and used as weed-preventative mulch.

Later in the season, when the corn is about a foot high, it receives a side dressing of 100 pounds of N via a 12-row liquid injection system. A cover crop mix of ryegrass, rapeseed, tillage radish, clover and kale is then broadcasted from a pair of seeders attached to the same 12-row fertilizer injector. The cover crop mix emerges and is growing well by the time corn is harvested in the fall, and the…