Trouble establishing a stand before winter is perhaps one of the biggest reasons some no-tillers steer clear of nutrient-recycling, organic-matter-building cover crops.

A growing number of farmers are switching to strip-till for a variety of reasons. Whether it’s to warm up soils that remain cold for too long in the spring, to trim input costs, to reduce compaction, improve drainage or other reasons, strip-till is getting a closer look these days.

Highly erodible soils shaped into gently rolling hills seemed to Nate Ronsiek like the perfect place to implement the no-till farming practices he learned as a student at Kansas State University. Ronsiek started developing his no-till plan in 2005 when he began taking over the family farm outside Hawarden in northwest Iowa.

We live in an area of Lancaster County, Pa., where small dairy farms of 50 to 60 cows are common and fields are small. Many of the farms are Amish-owned, where real horses provide the power.

Like most farms in the Midwest, the corn-soybean rotation dominates the landscape in eastern Nebraska.

When the owners of Cronin Farms near Gettysburg, S.D., compared input costs to net profits in 1989, it was clear there was room for improvement in their farming process. Together with their farm manager of 41 years, Dan Forgey, and the rest of the farm’s employees, they began investigating the benefits of no-till.

As a hog producer, Jeff Frey has a valuable asset with fertilizer prices rising rapidly. Yet, the Willow Street, Pa., no-tiller knows applying and managing hog manure in a no-till system has its challenges.