Getting the highest return from the least amount of work is the goal of any good no-tiller because it creates more free time to spend with your family or time to develop better ways of no-tilling.

This is Jeff Martin’s philosophy and the Mt. Pulaski, Ill., no-tiller doesn’t understand why conventional tillage farmers want to waste their precious time and money when they could be doing just as well or better with no-till.

Even though Martin says he will never use a plow, he wanted to find some tricks from the tillage side of farming to use in his no-till operation. Martin has spent quality time with champion corn grower Francis Childs, from Manchester, Iowa, who has seen corn yields as high as 408.21 bushels per acre, and shared some observations with an attentive audience at the recent National No-Tillage Conference.

“There’s no magic to any of this,” Martin says about increasing no-till corn yields on his farm. “It’s just a lot of little things that add up that can significantly increase corn yields.”

Strip-Tilling

After a few consecutive spring seasons that were wetter than normal, Martin decided to experiment with strip-tilling due to the severe residue management problems he was experiencing.

At first, he found it difficult to strip-till with anhydrous during the fall season because the window of opportunity was too short. Weather problems and covering large numbers of acres caused Martin to rethink his plan.

He wanted a program that would be successful in both the spring…