Gary Nelson and his son farm 2,500 acres in Iowa, and part of their operation includes on-farm research for the Ann Smeltzer Charitable Trust. On that farm, they have continuous no-till, continuous conventional tillage and strip-till the rest of the acres. Using strip-till, the Nelsons have reduced fuel use and passes across the field. They use precision technologies on their strip-till acres.
"New technology helps," Nelson says. "Precision tillage has changed things. We only till what we'll use."
Nelson has seen benefits in his soil make-up and has had no yield drop on his strip-tilled acres.