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Name: Spencer, Lynne, Dane, Sterling, Lianna, Gordon and Viola Hilton

Farm: Hilton Ventures Ltd.

Location: Strathmore, Alberta, Canada

Years No-Tilling: 40

Crops: Milling hard red spring wheat, malting barley and canola

Spencer: Running 10,000 acres of no-tilled hard red spring wheat, malting barley and canola in southern Alberta, Canada, is a team effort for our family. Until recently, when my parents, Gordon and Viola Hilton, exited the partnership, our farm was run by three generations.

Besides my wife, Lynne, and I, we work with my brother and sister-in-law Sterling and Lianna Hilton and my son, Dane.

Farmers here no longer talk about zero-till or direct seeding at meetings. It’s the new normal, which is largely the result of my father’s work to promote and share his experiences with the practice. As a result, the challenges we currently face aren’t the same as the previous generation.

While my father was an innovator in continuous cropping and adopting and perfecting direct seeding in the region — he was recently elected to the Alberta Agriculture Hall of Fame — my generation’s challenge is, how do we take those concepts and put them to work on a larger landscape?

My father farmed 2,500-3,000 acres with 5 people. We’re still farming with 5 people, but covering 10,000 acres. We’re looking to do more with less and take advantages of the economies of scale, which includes not splitting up the farm. Our father already took a giant step in that direction with his…