Bruce,

Thanks for the results. Sounds like you did a very careful test with the results of no till vs strip till beans (into cornstalks I assume?) basically a wash.  This also brings up a question, how did or would conventional tilled beans have done in this test? Any idea from neighbors nearby?

I have always said, IF you can no-till successfully, then that is the way to go. I am somewhat surprised that in your northern area there was not more difference between the "tilled" beans in strips vs the no till beans. Maybe the Curvetines, Trashwheels, new opener disks and your attention to your planter really paid off.

This may also be a case where we may want to do a couple year study before assuming the no till and strip tilled beans will always be that close in yield.

I would think that if you repeated this comparison with corn (corn into spring strips vs corn no tilled into bean stubble, wheat stubble or corn on corn) the results will be very different, again especially in your type soils in SW MN. No tilled corn yields have never been very consistent in that area.

One thing I try to convey to folks in strip till discussions is that we never claim a "yield increase" for strip tilled corn. We do claim a more consistent yield compared to no till and reduced costs of production when compared to other systems which use some sort of tillage.

You can increase profit by increasing income, reducing expenses or both. jmho.

As you have shown yourself, you can greatly reduce your fertilizer expenses using strip till in corn. In soybeans, since little or no fertilizer is usually applied, the "savings" from strip till is only in the tillage pass and maybe seed if there is a poplulation difference, IF yields are equal. And if you can no till beans with population and yields approaching the strip tilled beans, then no till beans is the way to go. 

We have several strip till customers in MN that I can think of who strip till for their corn into bean stubgble and corn on corn but no-till their beans into corn stubble. In C Illinois, Jim Kinsella has strip tilled ahead of corn and no tilled his beans for years. In SW MN heavy soils however, I think I'd like to see more than one year's results before making a final decision for beans.

Did you do a strip tilled CORN comparison to either no tilled corn or conventional tilled corn?

Thanks again for what seems to be a well done comparison.

Jim at Dawn