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Tillage Experiment Attracts Attention

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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Trending Video

No-Till vs Tillage: Why Neighboring Fields Are World Apart

Video: No-Till vs Tillage: Why Neighboring Fields Are World Apart

“No-till means no yield.”

“No-till soils get too hard.”

But here’s the real story — straight from two fields, same soil, same region, totally different outcomes.

Ray Archuleta of Kiss the Ground and Common Ground Film lays it out simply:

Tillage is intrusive.

No-till can compact — but only when it’s missing living roots.

Cover crops are the difference-maker.

In one field:

No-till + covers ? dark soil, aggregates, biology, higher organic matter, fewer weeds.

In the other:

Heavy tillage + no covers ? starving soil, low diversity, more weeds, fragile structure.

The truth about compaction?

Living plants fix it.

Living roots leak carbon, build aggregates, feed microbes, and rebuild structure — something steel never can.

Ready to go deeper into the research behind no-till yields, rotations, and profitability?