Jim Brushaber’s farm may not look different on the surface, but he invites you to dig a little deeper.

While some farmers are driven purely to make a buck, you might say that David Uchtmann is driven to get a buck.

When we decided that we wanted to no-till corn back in 1994, we knew we would face a tough challenge from our cold, wet spring soils. So, my brother Steve and I (with the support of our Dad, Dave) decided to try fall strip-tilling.

Research from around the world clearly documents that yield losses occur as a result of equipment passes through the field. Yield reductions occur from either direct damage to the standing crop or from the compacting of the soil, or both.

For many no-tillers, this was a long winter filled with cold temperatures and substantial snowfall — at least in the upper to central regions of the Midwest.

The shift to continuous no-tilling on our farm has more or less followed the development of planting equipment suited to this method of farming. Rock County, Wis., which borders northern Illinois, is the top soybean producing county in the state.

The first time I saw what Dwayne Beck was doing on the irrigation research farm near Redfield, S.D. (before he developed the Dakota Lakes Research Farm), I knew we were on the verge of a new type of crop production in our area.