KDD - 1/23/2018 10:49

Nothing against strip till, except on our more rolling fields it didn't work very well for us. Too much erosion down the row. Sold the bar and went back to either actual no-till, or vertical/reduced tillage. Still have erosion in the swales, but no longer in every row on the hills.

There is a fair bit of strip till done in the county just to the north of us, but most of the farmland there is fairly flat. Works much better there from what I can see.

Regarding fertilizer in a strip: I cannot see the return on a $200k machine to strip till and put fertilizer down on ground that is "pretty fertile right now". I do not agree with those who say you can cut application rates below removal rates by putting it in a strip. Just is not true in the long run. The crop will use what it will use no matter if in a strip or not. Can you cut rate short term? Sure. But you can do that without putting the fertilizer in a strip. Result is the same...eventually you will deplete soil nutrients to some degree, and have to replace them. Replace them each year or two with broadcast, and save the investment of strip fertilizer machinery, and use it to buy more fertilizer, or bank it.