When Tyler Zimmerman looks across his North Dakota fields, he doesn’t see just corn, soybeans and sunflowers anymore. He sees the payoff of an ongoing experiment to build soil health—one fueled by a unique partnership with his neighbor, the impact of grazing cattle, and the changing biology under his boots.
“We do just about everything on this together; it’s made this journey so much easier,” Zimmerman told a room of fellow farmers at the 2026 South Dakota Soil Health Conference, regarding his work with Chris Walberg, a fellow row-crop grower, cattle producer and friend.
Over the last decade, the two farmers have turned what could have been a daunting transition on their individual farms into a shared learning process of transitioning to no-till and the use of cover crops.
Here are some of their key recommendations and how they’ve used collaboration to succeed.
Start With Context
The farmers’ partnership is a study in contrasts. Despite living only 10 miles apart, Zimmerman’s farm features heavy clay soils that hold moisture like a sponge. Walberg’s fields lean toward light, sandy soils. Their farm differences have brought one of the most important soil health “principles” to their attention, one that rarely gets discussed: context.
While soil health principles are universal, the two farmers believe their application is hyper-local. Zimmerman and Walberg have learned that they cannot simply mirror growing each other’s cover mixes.
“You have to think about how to apply these to your specific place, your farm, your operation, to make you successful,” Walberg says.
He and Zimmerman recommend doing an audit of sorts to figure out what soil health practices and cover crops will work best. Consider your specific soil types, residue levels, typical harvest windows, and—crucially—your biggest bottlenecks, whether that’s moisture, erosion or herbicide carryover.
Evaluate Equipment Needs
To get cover crops planted and established, Zimmerman and Walberg leaned first on creativity, not new iron. They started out using an old International box drill, modifying it to run between 30- and 60-inch corn rows.
“There was virtually no improvements needed to make that work, other than pull a couple pins, pull a couple units off where the corn rows are, and we were off planting cover crops,” Zimmerman recalls.
Later, they co-built an interseeder and a 30-inch in-row crimper, sharing costs, so they could interseed corn and sunflower crops.
“I don’t know that alone I would have built that interseeder,” Walberg notes. “Being able to share the cost and the time investment, that’s been the power of partnering together.”
Independent Field Agronomist Lee Briese, who also spoke at the conference, urges farmers to take a hard look at their existing equipment resources, making a list of what they have access to for starting out.
“You need to know if you have the right piece of equipment. Do you have the right operator that has time to do the work when you need to do it? Use those things to help you build your system… Take inventory of resources, because it’s really hard right now to go and spend a lot of money on something that you don’t have.” Briese says.
Here are the seven steps Briese recommends farmers evaluate:
Master The Seeding Window
When it comes to interseeding into corn, both farmers say timing is critical for stand establishment. They’ve found that interseeding earlier at around V2 to V3 before the canopy closes works best.
Two additional takeaways they encourage other farmers to consider:
- For aerial seeding, residue and insect pressure matter; flying on before harvest so residue can help cover and protect seed may improve establishment.
- Expect more variability in broadcast or aerial seedings as residue builds; be ready to adjust or change your methods over time.
Choose Herbicide Programs With Covers In Mind
Cover crops have to be able to survive your weed-control program. Both Zimmerman and Walberg emphasize planning chemistry use around cover crops—not the other way around.
“A lot of these species — rye, oats, flax, radishes — most of those will grow through almost any chemical program,” Zimmerman says. “They might be in a weakened state for a while, but… most of the time, they will work through it.”
On Walberg’s farm, he leans on a burndown product and then a light residual for weed control.
“What’s worked well for me is a non-residual burndown, like a Roundup and 2,4-D or something like that,” he says. “Then I’ll come back with, typically, Laudis. If I wait about seven days after I apply Laudis and then come back and interseed, it seems like that chemical doesn’t affect my cover crop.”
Use Crimping Strategically — Not Everywhere
Zimmerman and Walberg use two different crimpers: a 40-foot flat-roll crimper for rye; and a 30-inch in-row crimper that rolls covers between crop rows.
For them, crimping is a targeted tool to use and doesn’t fit the entire farm.
“The reason we wanted that [in-row crimper] is we’re trying to reduce our herbicide use,” Walberg notes. “It isn’t like a tool we’re using on every acre, but… when we got rye set up in these twin rows in between our corn, it works good.”
Crimped rye can give fields a powerful burst of soil life.
“Say you crimp down 100 pounds of rye and plant something into it,” Walberg said. “When you come back a month later and you pull that residue apart, you can just see that soil — it’s thriving underneath there.”
Timing matters a great deal if you want to use crimping. In their northern climate, waiting for rye to reach anthesis (flowering, pollen shed) can push soybean planting into June. Zimmerman has seen stands suffer when crimping too late over already stressed beans, and says he’s still fine-tuning termination timing.
Integrate Livestock When Possible
For Zimmerman, who owns no cattle, the payoff from good cover establishment is the ability to attract livestock — and the biology they bring.
“I have no cattle, so I’m always trying to get cattle on my land,” he says, noting that strong cover crop stands can turn your farm into a sought-after grazing resource.
Walberg often places some of his cattle on Zimmerman’s fields and pays him a stipend for feed. In return, Zimmerman gets nutrient cycling and hoof action on grain ground, some of which hasn’t seen cattle in decades.
The two farmers say grazing living or recently terminated covers may improve nutrient cycling compared with chemical-only termination.
Collaboration Makes It Sustainable — and Fun
Beyond the agronomy, both men say the biggest factor in their success with cover crops is their partnership.
“We’ve known each other since, well, forever,” Zimmerman says. “The last seven, eight, 10 years, we’re talking to each other every day, every other day… collaborating about all these things that we can do together and make things work.”
Walberg says the shift from competition to collaboration has changed how he sees farming.
“Conventional farming [can drive] a lot of neighbor competition,” he says. “Doing a lot of collaboration and working together… makes it fun.”
On the fundamentals of making a working relationship like theirs work, Walberg’s answer was simple: shared goals and honest communication.
“We share soil health goals for sure,” he says. “And I think, like anything in life… communication is key. If you can have open and honest communication, most people, as long as they’re reasonable, can work through just about anything.”
Their key takeaways on collaboration:
- Find at least one like-minded neighbor to share ideas, equipment and results with.
- Start small — one shared tool, one trial field, one grazing arrangement.
- Treat collaboration as a long-term relationship, not a one-off deal; trust and fairness matter as much as seed choices or row spacing.
For Zimmerman, the original goal of saving a few dollars on labor has grown into a deeper philosophy. Looking at his thriving fields, he now asks a different question: “Why isn’t everybody trying to do this? We’re saving on inputs and building something for the long-term.”
His advice to any farmer looking to start is simple: start where you are, use what you have, and—most importantly—don’t go it alone.
Watch the full presentation by Walberg and Zimmerman at the 2026 South Dakota Soil Health Conference on YouTube, available here.
