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For farmers curious about the benefits of reducing their tillage practices, custom strip-till can be an efficient and affordable entry point. For farmers already building strips every year, it can be a lucrative business opportunity.

Even though cover crop acreage in the U.S. has doubled to nearly 10 million acres in the last several years, the industry itself is very young as applied to today’s cropping systems.

Data show there is not a lot of crossover between the top milk-producing states in the U.S. (in dollars) and the top states for no-tilled acres — that’s because many dairy farmers have had long frustrations managing manure and no-tilling. 

Tim Little of Faribault, Minn., has seen cover crops come full circle on his 300 acre operation. Growing up on a dairy outside Dundas, Minn., Little says his dad, Harold, was committed to using cover crops — they just weren’t called that in those days.

When avid hunter and outdoorsman Tom Cannon was in his mid-20s, he experimented with no-till and interseeded food plots to attract white-tailed deer and other game on his family’s ranch near the small town of Newkirk in north-central Oklahoma.