Running equipment on the same tracks all the time is the essence of controlled traffic farming — and while the practice only has a few adherents in Alberta, they are passionate about its benefits.

Controlled traffic farming is proving its worth, say advocates

The system ‘shines’ during droughts and lets farmers seed and harvest sooner when it’s wet, they say

Controlled traffic farming has yet to catch on in a big way in Western Canada, but the extreme conditions over the past two years have shown its worth to two long-term practitioners on opposite ends of the Prairies. “I grew canola and barley last year and we had 28-bushel canola on four and a half

CTF systems rely on matching the width of equipment to restrict travel to a few tramways leaving the rest of the field uncompacted.

The straight and narrow of CTF

Tramline farming can limit compaction, reduce costs, increase production and improve soil health

Adam Gurr heard of controlled traffic farming (CTF) about 15 years ago and dismissed it at first. He felt living in a freeze/thaw climate like ours would break up any soil compaction in his fields so it wasn’t necessary here. Still, when he looked closely at crop growth on the previous year’s combine tracks the


Early controlled traffic farming pioneer saw benefit in soil biology

Two-year study showed significant improvements in several areas

When Adam Gurr talks about the history of controlled traffic farming (CTF) in Canada he’ll tell you about Dean Glenney, a now-retired agricultural engineer and farmer from Ontario. He could get phenomenal corn yields and he felt it was because of his use of CTF. “When you visit Dean’s farm, he brings a shovel out,