The Story Behind the First-Ever Strip-Till Rig

We’ve got an exclusive interview with Ricky Brown, who developed the first-ever commercial strip-till rig with Leo and Jerril Hardin in Alabama. Our Mike Lessiter catches up with Brown for a look back at the groundbreaking creation.

“We built the very first one in 1972. Then 1980, we redesigned it totally and the strip-tillage units today are exactly like we were building in 1980. The technology has been around a long time. It got a little too big for us, and in 1981 we sold our patents to the Bush Hog corporation. They called it Precision Applied Tillage. They were in it for a few years. For whatever reason they abandoned it. Now about 80% of the cotton is grown with strip-till in the U.S. We were on the right track. We just didn’t last long enough or pursue it hard enough. We were at least 20 years ahead of our time. That’s how it got started — by subsoiling on the back side of the field where you couldn’t see it from the road and planting perpendicular to it, and the corn grew much better over the slots.” 

Catch the full interview on StripTillFarmer.com.

Watch the full version of this episode of Conservation Ag Update.