The 10^th annual National Strip-Tillage Conference captured a growing interest in strip-till as over 400 attendees, including 197 first timers, traveled to Bloomington, Ill., for the 3-day event.

I’m a third generation farmer at Renwood Farms in Charles City, Virginia, which is about 20 miles from historic Jamestown, Va., where early settlers first started growing corn in about 1609.

Two decades of reduced tillage have helped the Rotenberger family improve soil health and address some daunting residue challenges posed by their cropping rotations.

While the fear of failure keeps many farmers from pulling the trigger on game-changing decisions, the lessons of conservation farming were drilled into Blake Vince’s head by his father at an early age.

A growing number of farmers are switching to strip-till for a variety of reasons. Whether it’s to warm up soils that remain cold for too long in the spring, to trim input costs, to reduce compaction, improve drainage or other reasons, strip-till is getting a closer look these days.

There's a buzz — some of it positive, some not — coming out of southeastern Minnesota about a new strip-tilling machine. The chatter focuses on Mark Bauer’s Soil Warrior, which he says provides an unprecedented balance between conventional tillage and no-till.