Joe Garland examines the golden corn stalks that an earthworm has carefully dragged into its hole. The Ohio farmer finds earthworms are just one benefit of strip-tillage.

"If you want to double the size of your farm, farm vertically,” says Ray Rawson. The developer of several pieces of zone tillage equipment and a no-till corn and soybean producer from Farwell, Mich., for many years has taken the time to look beneath the soil surface. The result has been higher yields on his own and and many other farms.