“Our dirt is the kind they build racetracks on,” Eric Reed says. The first-generation farmer set the Alabama National Corn Growers Assn. dryland corn yield record on poor grounds with a low budget — and he’s on a mission to teach others how to achieve similar success in less-than-ideal conditions.

“I want to teach the farmer who thinks they can’t make it work because of financials, equipment or poor soils that they can do this.”

The Elora, Tenn., native sits down with technology editor Noah Newman in the video below for a preview of his upcoming classroom session, “Making Strip-Till Work on a Low Budget,” at the National Strip-Tillage Conference, Aug. 2-4, in Bloomington, Ill.