Five years ago, Canadian no-tiller Craig Shaw had never heard of controlled-traffic farming. Today, he’s making a long-term commitment to the system.

Finding answers for farmers is the mission of all university research farms, but the Graves-Chapple Research Center in northwest Missouri zeroes in on the questions from a solidly no-till perspective.

Pacific Northwest no-tillers will soon be taking advantage of a certification program that will set them apart from other grain growers. And since they’re already no-tilling successfully, many are already well on the way to qualifying for this program aimed at demonstrating sustainable farming practices to consumers.

A change in soil sampling and fertility application may be just the ticket for Garrison, N.D., no-tiller Mike Zimmerman to achieve his farm goals.

“HELP!” Horticulturist Ron Morse remembers the day nearly 30 years ago when that message, scrawled by a county extension agent on the bottom of a snapshot, arrived at his Virginia Tech University office. The photo showed a mud slide blocking a rural Appalachian farm road. What was left of a cabbage patch planted on a steep sloping field was mired in the mud.

Karl Kupers ticks off the three ingredients he says are musts to make a Pacific Northwest farm sustainable: continual learning, discovery and persistence. They've been his rules to live by for the past dozen years.