Winners of the the sixth annual No-Till Innovator Awards, co-sponsored by Syngenta Crop Protection and No-Till Farmer, were announced at the National No-Tillage Conference on January 11, 2002, in St. Louis, Mo.

The No-Till Innovator Awards are presented to honorees whose contributions have advanced no-till farming in six categories: ag supplier, consulting, crop production, equipment systems design, organization, and research and education.

Strand of Milan, Inc., Ag Supplier

Strand of Milan Inc., located in Milan, Minn., has come a long way since its start in the late 1800s as simply a hardware and clothing store.

It moved into the lumber business and as recently as 10 years ago, Strand of Milan, Inc. took on the idea of no-tilling after suffering through two consecutive years of snow falling on Halloween, which prevented fall tillage. After buying a no-till drill the following spring, the company now averages approximately 1,200 acres per no-till drill each year through a combination of custom seeding and drill rental.

The company is also involved with site-specific applications, global positioning systems variable-rate applications and soil mapping.

David Cole, Consulting

David Cole is a production veteran with 20 years of no-till and 41 years of agronomy science experience. The owner of ITAC, Inc. of Wisconsin in Prairie du Sac, Wis., Cole has established solid relationships with many growers and university researchers.

He worked with University of Wisconsin-Madison’s soil science department on trials with starter fertilizer which showed that later-planted corn had a favorable response to starter fertilizer, even under…