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.

Having his own strip-till unit to put down pre-plant nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium for corn was an idea that always bubbled on the back burner for Fred Abels. The Holland, Iowa, no-tiller thought he could incorporate just such a home-built unit into his current no-till operation.

The whole world changed for me 18 years ago. Thanks — or no thanks — to big farming and a bad economy, I lost nearly everything I owned — a 4,000-acre operation including land, equipment, 500 beef cows, trucks, cars, personal tools and anything else that the bankers could find in the sheds to auction off.