Vertical tillage is described as a system of soil management that promotes root development. It's also sometimes called "soiling" or zone tillage because it's used to fracture the entire soil profile from the bottom up using specially designed vertical tillage tools. According to the Precision Planting Co., each tillage pass is designed to increase the vertical flow of nutrients, water and developing roots. Tillage points of the tools work to “heave” the entire section of earth from just below the line that separates topsoil from subsoil.

Ron Lampe wants the fertilizer placed into the soil profile exactly where it will do the most good. That’s why he’s adopted a strip-till system that injects fertilizer at two distinct depths. His goal: fertilize at and below the seed to expand the beneficial soil profile.

Tim Manchester was nonchalantly looking over yield maps when the clusters of dots representing yields glowed as brightly as a K-Mart blue light special.

Art Schultheis relies on no-till to get the best possible return from his 1,100 acre operation, which receives an average annual rainfall of only 18 to 20 inches.

While most Corn Belt no-tillers grow only corn and soybeans, Charlie Hammer prefers a three-way rotation. The operator of Hammer & Kavazanjian Farms with his wife Nancy Kavazanjian at Beaver Dam, Wis., prefers a no-till rotation evenly split between corn, soybeans and wheat in the farm’s 2,300-acre operation.

It's easy to tell that no-tiller Jim Kinsella is passionate about soil carbon.