Economic, conservation and scientific reasons appear to be pushing no-tillers toward applying less nitrogen in their fields.

While most of the attention in strip-till gets paid to corn, there are some growers who are successfully strip-tilling soybeans.

While many strip-tillers would have preferred to build strips and put down fertilizer in the fall, a late harvest prevented much of the work from being completed.

Have you ever felt like you needed a little more space? If Greg Selbrede’s corn plants could talk, the Leon, Wis., no-tiller figures they would have been telling him they felt just a bit claustrophobic.

The higher the cost of the input, the more important it becomes to maximize efficiencies and make sure that input pays dividends. High fertilizer prices paired with potential environmental impact makes managing nutrient inputs doubly important.

Fertilizer was a painful input for most no-tillers in 2008. Growing world demand (up 14% — a growth equal to the entire U.S. market, according to The Fertilizer Institute), high production costs, increased transportation expense and a faltering U.S. dollar all contributed to record-high prices for major nutrients.

More than 25 years ago, Bob Kannall bought his first no-till corn planter.