Tillage Experiment Attracts Attention

Jul 30, 2015

An attempt to sign up farmers for a large strip tillage trial drew a lot of a attention today with more than a hundred people watched the equipment at work.

Ken Nixon is already convinced that only disturbing narrow strips of the soil where the seeds go is a better method.

“As a tillage system we love it, it’s the only tillage instrument we own, we don’t have a plough, a cultivator, or disc and we are quite happy,” he says.

“I think we have to reduce our passes over the field as much as we can and get our soil back in good shape,” says farmer Hector Van Damme who is already using conservation tillage would consider strip tillage.

The farm service company Southwest Ag Partners wants to sign up more than a hundred farmers to test the system and be sure they understand it.

Those taking part in the experiment hope it will be better for the land and produce equal or better crops while reducing the amount of run-off.

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Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.