By Noah Newman posted on August 7, 2026 | Posted in Cover Crops, Equipment, Precision Agriculture, Seeding & Planting
https://www.no-tillfarmer.com/articles/15479-live-from-the-strip-till-conference-workshop
On this episode of Conservation Ag Update, brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment, managing editors Noah Newman and Mackane Vogel report from the National Strip-Tillage Conference pre-conference workshop at the Bayer Crop Science Research Farm in New Berlin, Ill.
Newman goes 1-on-1 with farm manager Josh Dukeman, who highlights some of the eye-opening research being conducted at the farm.
In the Cover Crop Connection, Mackane Vogel gets an up-close look at cover crop profitability in the long-term sustainability plots.
Plus, we head out to Grand Farm for the Elevate AI summit, where Colin Angle shares an interesting take on the emergence of AI in agriculture.
In the Video of the Week, Newman catches up with a first-time and longtime attendees at the National Strip-Tillage Conference for their key takeaways from the event.
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Jump to a section or scroll for the full episode…
- Inside the Bayer Crop Science Research Farm
- Cover Crop Benefits on Display in Bayer’s Long Term Sustainability Plots
- AI in Spotlight at Grand Farm’s Elevate Summit
- Longtime Attendee & First-Time Attendee Discuss Strip-Till Conference Takeaways
- Minnesota Soil Health Bus Tour Brings 40-Plus Farmers to Strip-Till Conference
Inside the Bayer Crop Science Research Farm
Hello everybody. Noah Newman here at the Bayer Crop Science Research Farm in New Berlin, Illinois, ahead of the 13th Annual National Strip-Tillage Conference gathered here for the pre-conference workshop and welcome to Conservation Ag Update.
Conservation Ag Update is brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment. All right, we’re kicking the program off here with Josh Dukeman, farm manager for the Bayer Crop Science Research Farm. And Josh, first of all, thanks for hosting this pre-conference workshop for the National Strip-Tillage Conference. Tell us a little bit about what you guys have going on out here at this farm.
Josh Dukeman: “Yeah, I guess first it’s been great. We’ve had an awesome crowd. Appreciate you guys including us and giving us the opportunity to do this. We’ve had several stations set up today. I think the growers have taken a lot away from our digital platform. You asked me about the research farm. We’re about 11, 1200 acres of large scale grower equipment type research. So we’re a little unique in that realm. We do anything from density testing on our precision corn. We do a fair amount of cover crop work, staying in that sustainability realm. We do a lot of work with fungicides. Gosh, I don’t know. I’m getting lost in all of our different trials, but we’ve got a lot and it’s tough to go through them all. But I guess the most important thing would be everything is done and recorded through our Fieldview platform digitally and the data return and what we’re able to provide some insights into growers is second to none.”
Noah Newman: “So this platform records everything from yield data, applications, I Might be putting you on the spot with this, but any key takeaways jump out from some of the research that you covered here today at the event?”
Josh Dukeman: “Just in general conversation with the customers or just what we’re doing?”
Noah Newman: “Yeah, general conversations. When you were giving your presentations, what are some key points maybe that really resonated with people?”
Josh Dukeman: “Yeah, I think some of the trial work that I presented, not necessarily in this map, but some of the fungicide blocks, I think the people here were really keyed in on how accurate I was able to dissect R3 applied fungicide versus untreated versus maybe a V5 application. I think they felt it dead on accurate in terms of breaking that stuff out. I also think they learned pretty quickly that they could be their own research farm and their entire operation could be very similar to what we’re doing here. It just takes getting in the platform and learning how to use it.”
Cover Crop Benefits on Display in Bayer’s Long Term Sustainability Plots
We are at the Bayer Research Farm in New Berlin, Illinois in front of the long-term sustainability plots where our attendees are getting an up close look at the long-term benefits of cover crops.
“The cover crop species you’re using in front of corn, we’ve learned that that really matters. So some cover crop species, if you don’t manage them correctly, can actually be a detriment to corn yield. So I just encourage growers to research that, understand that before they adopt it. In soybeans, to be honest with you, we don’t see much difference in yield when it comes to cover crops in front of soybeans. What we do see though is we see benefits in terms of less weed pressure at times. And we actually had a trial looking at that this year specifically. We also see obviously that’s well documented, the soil health benefits of adding the cover crop into the mix.”
AI in Spotlight at Grand Farm’s Elevate Summit
We’re here at the shortcorn station. This is one of the four stations here at the pre-conference workshop. And getting ahead of the curve with this shortcorn here, a lot of interesting data shared here today. Speaking of ahead of the curve, now last episode we told you about our senior editor, John Dobberstein. He attended the Elevate AI Conference out at the Grand Farm in North Dakota. And one of the speakers that he caught up with had a very interesting take on AI and agriculture. And let’s play a clip from that.
“And this whole AI stuff, because we’ve just been gifted in our lifetime, the best toolbox the world has ever seen to build cool stuff. But we have to figure out for ourselves what we should build because the opportunities are far larger than certainly in any of our lifetimes we can complete. And there are right and wrong things and good and bad ways of using this tool. And maybe by telling some of my story, there’s some insights that might come out and we can discuss them because I’ve built a lot of things. I built 50 million robots so far and certainly I don’t intend on being done. And they’re not all vacuums. I built bore hole robots to go into oil wells and to do inspection. Back in 1994, I worked with John Deere. We took a gator and we put in autonomous steering. We put a LiDAR on front and we figured this thing could probably drive itself.”
“And it worked.”
Video of the Week: Longtime Attendee & First-Time Attendee Discuss Strip-Till Conference Takeaways
And to downtown Springfield, we go for our video of the week. Of course, the National Strip-Tillage Conference was jam packed with the capacity crowd for Brian Hefty’s kickoff presentation. And according to our numbers, 57% of the crowd consisted of first time attendees. One of those first timers is Kinze’s Brad Niensteadt. On the flip side, you have Yetter’s Andy Thompson who’s been to every strip till conference. I caught up with both of them to discuss their key takeaways.
Noah Newman: “So day one of the Strip Till Conference here, from the conversations you’ve had with people or maybe one of the presentations you watched, what’s something that’s jumped out? Any key moments, anything that surprised you or anything new you learned or that you weren’t expecting to hear? Both of you could jump in on this one.”
Brad Niensteadt: “To me, the best comment so far was when we were talking about a presenter, and I can’t remember his name off the top of my head, gentleman from Minnesota said the biggest thing or hangup that you might have is right here in your head. That was probably the best comment I heard. It wasn’t price or concern or anything like that. It was purely, “If you’re going to do it, do it.” And that was a good view. I liked the take on it of the only one holding you back is yourself. And it’s the great matter between your ears, as he said. So that was a good quote.”
Andy Thompson: “Absolutely.”
Brad Niensteadt: “That was a good quote.”
Andy Thompson: “For me, one of the things was talking with Chris Perkins and Chris Kasten. And as they were talking about their tissue testing and their different testing methods here, I found that very interesting. Something that I feel as though that I can apply to my situation. And so I’m very intrigued and interested in that. And then back to from a supplier or vendor standpoint here was how many first-timers? I feel like that in the past we’ve sometimes struggled on getting first-timers. Sometimes we’ve struggled on getting veterans. In my opinion, I feel like that the people that I’ve talked to today, we have a great group of interested people looking to get into strip till as well as industry veterans that have been doing this a long time. And so I’ve just been very, very pleased with that today and looking forward to a lot more great conversations.”
Minnesota Soil Health Bus Tour Brings 40-Plus Farmers to Strip-Till Conference
And we’re wrapping the show up here in front of this giant bus, which brought over 40 farmers from Minnesota here to the National Strip-Tillage Conference as part of the Southeast Minnesota Soil Health Bus Tour. Alan Krause, who put the whole thing together with some help, said it was a lot of fun. And it was very educational too. They had strip till experts on board educating people about strip till. And really cool to see that 40 people get off this bus here earlier today. So a great way to wrap up this on scene episode of Conservation Ag Update. In New Berlin, Illinois, the National Strip-Tillage Conference Pre-event.