Solving the Residue ‘Rubik’s Cube’ with Custom-Built Attachments

Nov 13, 2025

Cover crop seeder for strip-till bar & residue management tool for combine deliver ROI for young farmer

Tanner Schoff’s dad, James, started no-tilling corn and soybeans almost 30 years ago in Walnut, Ill., to keep the soil in place on their highly erodible land. Not too long after that, they started strip-tilling their corn.

“We mainly started no-tilling and strip-tilling for erosion control, but after a few years we saw even more benefits,” Tanner Schoff says. “Our compaction issues improved over the years. We can dig into the soil now and see a ton of earthworms. It’s amazing what the switch has done for our soil biology. Also, banding fertilizer in zones has greatly increased yields and reduced our overall fertilizer use.”

Today, the Schoffs implement a corn-corn-soybean rotation. They strip-till all their corn acres and no-till their soybeans. Although the switch to conservation practices delivered significant payoffs, it also came with a big challenge.

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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.