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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