A tractor driver’s talents can be critical to the success or failure of strip-tilling, maintains Bill Rohrs. The head of the Conservation Action Project in Findlay, Ohio, says an efficient driver must be able to build a mound that will still have an adequate height in the spring, leaving a strip that will be drier and preparing an air pocket-free seeding area to increase plant germination.

Try to keep your no-till planting speed at less than 5 mph, suggests Scott Davidson. The no-tiller from Bethany, Ill. (an attendee of all 25 National No-Tillage Conferences), says most planters are designed to drop a 30,000 population at 4½ mph.

Ten years of results from Marion Calmer’s extensive on-farm research studies didn’t show any economic advantage for soybeans planted in late April or early May with plant populations of over 175,000 seeds per acre.

No-till seeding equipment must be able to handle wet soils, heavy residue and soils that have an existing structure built around intensive tillage to get uniform and vigorous stands, says Matt Hagny.

With the heavy soils in northwestern Ohio, Joe Nester likes to no-till with what he calls a defensive soybean program. The crop consultant from Antwerp, Ohio, says Roundup Ready soybean fields that are no-tilled need to be scouted more often than fields planted to traditional varieties. Just because these fields are free of weeds today doesn’t mean they will be next week.

With long-term no-till, Lloyd Murdock says growers can increase organic matter levels to a point where soils are very difficult to compact. The University of Kentucky soil scientist urges no-tillers not to resort to rotational tillage after a few years when problems arise. He predicts a number of benefits for no-till that won’t happen for 12-15 years down the road.

John Walker told attendees deep-banding starch has the potential to increase yields with almost any no-till crop. The agronomist at Ricks College in Rexburg, Idaho, told attendees to use granulated starch rather than powdered starch, mix it with starter fertilizer and deep band the mixture with the planter at a rate of at least 20 pounds of granulated starch per acre.

Todd Intermill equipped a 6-row John Deere no-till planter with six Case IH offset disc openers. The Colman, S.D., no-tiller took one disc off each row, alternating them left and right with the new discs so the leading discs would not pull the planter to the side.

In an 11-year experiment at the University of Tennessee’s Milan Experiment Station, John Bradley found the fuel costs of no-tilled corn amounted to $4.90 per acre less than conventional tillage. The long-time no-till researcher found corn yields were also higher with no-till.

Building strips in the fall leaves a mound of soil in the row area that remains 5-7 degrees warmer than the surrounding soil, says Cliff Roberts of Kentland, Ind. Fall stripping allows ideal fertilization placement and eliminates compaction in the row area. Having already strip-tilled for a half dozen years, Roberts indicated he had done it all wrong the first 3.