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| Agreed! Strip-till works in most regions on most soil types without yield drag and plenty, o'plenty of per acre cost savings! :-) I have been no-tilling in Central IL soils for nearly 15 years and began the transition to strip-till four years ago and i'm not even considering going back (too many cost saving advantages with very little margin for error or failure). My yields are equal to if not better than most conventional tilled soils, no matter if in a corn / soybean rotation or corn after corn. My fertility program has been optimized and become far more efficient through fall "in-zone" application only (no more fertilizer handling and spreading fees). While all my neigbors continue their fall and spring recreational tillage with low to moderate benefits and lots of fuel and labor costs, I simply run one pass in the fall to build or re-build / re-condition my zones and apply dry fertilizer where needed and plant over the zones in the spring using GPS auto-steer, all with the same tractor (I cut the amount of equipment in half, reduced machinery and labor costs by nearly 2/3's, etc.). My machinery costs have shifted slightly to now include auto-steering with RTK to ensure the best possible use of land, fuel, machinery and labor and that is a whole lot cheaper of an investment than a 32+ foot one-pass tool or even a culitvator, not to mention the tractor(s) to pull them with.
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is there yield drag on 2nd year corn with the newer hybrids, how about 3rd year
