Big news here. For the first time in the history of Conservation Ag Update, we’ve got a story about no-till in Alaska! 

Sixth-generation farmer Clayton Griffith, who moved from Kansas to the “Last Frontier” 5 years ago to pursue his passion for hunting and fishing, is converting his 5,600-acre farm near Delta Junction, Alaska, to no-till, so he can produce small grains more efficiently and sustainably. 

 To make that happen, Wichita, Kan., based Quality Drills and Walt Pene Trucking out of Texas are hauling two John Deere air seeders and a Hagie sprayer 6,000 miles to its final destination. Our John Dobberstein caught up with Clayton to talk about his motivation for going no-till.    

“A couple of reasons why … getting in the fields early, we have a short growing season. And currently right now, there's still snow sitting on the fields, so when it dries out, you can't have an actual target date for planting. So, it's very important that you get the seed in the ground as soon and efficiently as possible. And with that, we can do some variable rate seeding, herbicide applications, and fertilizer right with the seed and have better control of our crop and our growing conditions that way. But the mitigation tool that is to go no-till is get all of the seed in the ground as soon as possible. When you're conventionally tilling, we would have to till it all up, possibly spray it, and then go into till. So, it could be a three to four-week deal. With no-till, we're planning on less than a week.”

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Listen to the full conversation on No-TillFarmer.com with Clayton and the people at Quality Drills and AlaskaAgro.

Watch the full Video of this episode of Conservation Ag Update.