With every rising farm machinery costs, the squeeze is certainly on farmers to come up with new ways to cut their investment in tractors, implements and combines.

It's clear from the introductions at farm shows over the last few years that strip-till is growing in use.

While some growers and educators figured the U.S. no-till acreage might have decreased during the past 2 years, it instead turned in an astounding increase of 7.1 million acres. Much of the increase occurred in the Great Plains states where no-till is helping growers make more productive use of limited water.

For the first time ever, no-till acres in the United States have broken the 50 million acre mark. The results shown in the No-Till-Age chart at left indicate farmers no-tilled 50,787,792 acres last year.