Although farm equipment manufacturers have engineers specifically charged to design and build no-till planters that efficiently place seed in the ground at the optimum depth, in a variety of field conditions, it’s difficult to find a no-tiller running a truly “bone stock” OEM planter.

When Tim Waltz first tried no-till in 1983 as a demonstration for a local farm show, it was a dry year and the results weren't impressive.

Price advantages. Nutrient management. Increasing organic matter. Soil types. There are many reasons a no-tiller may decide to work with a corn-on-corn rotation, but continuous no-till corn isn’t absent of challenges.

Strip-tilling helps manage residue, increase continuous-corn yields and protect the soil, say four Iowa strip-tillers and an ag retailer who have been using the system for years.

Conventional wisdom says no-till won’t work in northern Iowa, an area infamous for cold, wet soils. But Thornton, Iowa, farmer Doug Caffrey, who grows corn and soybeans and raises grow-to-finish hogs, has no-tilled successfully for almost 25 years.

Wet fall, wet spring, wet fall, wet spring. It seems no-tillers need to get used to making things work in a more aquatic-type system, our recent survey of No-Till Farmer readers found. In fact, how our readers’ no-till planter setups worked in wet conditions was a common thread in the replies we received.