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Volume 41, Number 8 | MARCH 17, 2015

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PRACTICAL PRODUCTION TIPS FOR THE PRAIRIE FARMER

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INOCULANT: Finding the right formulation Liquid, peat or granular?

Choose the best one for your fields

By Melanie Epp

I

noculants can offer tremendous value to growers at a reasonable price. Under ideal conditions, all three formulations — liquid, peat or granular — can be equally effective. As conditions deteriorate, though, differences can occur.

The different types of inoculants refer to the substrate that the rhizobium bacteria are applied to, says Dr. Diane Knight, soil science professor at the University of Saskatchewan.

Liquid inoculants are broth cultures that are sold either refrigerated or as frozen concentrates. Usually, they are mixed with water and sprayed into the seed furrow at planting.

“Liquid inoculants are probably the least popular because they need to be refrigerated during shipping and storage,” says Knight.

“In Western Canada, liquids are not as common as peat and granular inoculants.”

With peat inoculants the bacteria adhere to a commercial grade, finely ground peat moss. “The peat provides a relatively inert substrate that the bacteria can survive on in high numbers,” says Knight. “Peat inocu-

lants sometimes are manufactured with a ‘sticker’ substance added to adhere the peat inoculant to the seed. With non-sticking formulations the farmer can add a sticker separately. The powdered peat is applied directly to the seed at seeding so that the bacteria are in direct contact with the seed.”

Granular inoculants are small pellets, usually made of an inert clay — although other substances have been used — that the bacteria are applied to. Similar to peat, granular inoculants provide an inert stable substrate that supports the bacteria in high numbers.

Granular inoculants are applied to the soil rather than to the seed.

Choosing the right rhizobium Crops are very selective about the type of bacteria they use to form nodules that result in the desired nitrogen fixation. Field peas, lentils and faba beans, for instance, require Rhizobium leguminosarum species.

Chickpeas require Mesorhizobium cicero, dry beans require Rhizobium phaseeoli and soybeans require Bradyrhizobium japonicum.

photo: thinkstock

The most important factor is to choose the right inoculant for the pulse crop you’re growing.

Choosing the wrong one, says Diane Knight, “is the same as applying nothing, just more expensive.” Chickpeas require the bacteria Mesorhizobium cicero.

“Apply a pea inoculant to soybean and no infection of bacteria will occur,” says Garry Hnatowich, research director at the Irrigation Crop Diversification Corporation at Outlook, Sask.

Knight agrees. “Purchasing the correct inoculant for a particular pulse crop is the most important decision — makes far more difference than whether it is a peat/granular or liquid inoculant,” she says. “Applying an inoculant for soybean onto pea will have no benefit. It is the same as applying nothing, just more expensive.”

Which inoculant works best?

Powdered peat-based inoculants were first introduced for sale in North America in 1897, says Hnatowich. “Up until about 25 years ago, they remained the only commercial formulation available to growers,” he says.

“This formulation was awkward to apply

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with accuracy, dusty and had poor adhesion with the seed they were applied to,” says Hnatowich. “Many farmers resorted to mixing in ‘glues’ to help the inoculant stay on the seed, such as powdered milk, honey and even cola.”

“Liquid inoculants alleviated much of the application difficulties,” he says. “They could be conveniently metered and applied as seed was augered into the truck or into the seeder.”

As the number of seed/input tanks on seeders increased, more granular inoculants were developed. Now application rates can be easily calibrated, and they offer a positional placement within the seed-row that can be beneficial, says Hnatowich.

“The three types differ in the way the bacteria are delivered to the system,” says Knight.

“Because they are delivered differently, the

» continued on page 4

Wheat & Chaff .................. 2 Features . ........................... 5 Crop Advisor’s Casebook . 6 Columns ............................ 15 Farm Safety . ..................... 24 Machinery & Shop............. 28

Winter wheat, winter kill lisa guenther

page 5

Pick up truck special

scott garvey page 28

Cattleman’s Corner .......... 37 FarmLife ............................ 44

Grow your knowledge and your business here Find hundreds of insightful articles, videos, podcasts and webinars from industry experts at fcc.ca.

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/ grainews.ca MARCH 17, 2015

Wheat & Chaff STAMPEDE

BY JERRY PALEN Leeann Minogue

I

n past columns I’ve written about research levies and wheat industry associations.

Today: canola.

You might be asking, “Why are there so many organizations with ‘canola’ in their name?” Here’s a quick summary.

Provincial canola organizations

“Maybe you’re ready for some running boards.”

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If you want to get involved in canola research and policy, start by paying attention to your local provincial organization. Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan each have their own farmer-led commodity associations solely devoted to canola. These are funded by your refundable levies of $1 per tonne of canola sold. Each of these associations funds some research, extension and policy work.

In Alberta, the group is called the Alberta Canola Producers Commission. It started in 1989 — Alberta’s first refundable checkoff producer organization. It runs with a 14-person board of directors: a chair, a vice-chair and one representative from each of 12 regions. Lee Markert, a farmer from Vulcan, Alta., became chair at the end of January. Ward Toma is the general manager at the Edmonton office.

In Saskatchewan, the job is handled by SaskCanola (more formally known as the Saskatchewan Canola Development Commission). This group has been running since 1991. It’s governed by an eightmember elected board. The current chair is Esterhazy farmer Dale Leftwich. Janice Tranberg is the executive director in the Saskatoon office.

In January I sat in on the SaskCanola annual meeting in Saskatoon. While the meeting was well attended and there was a couple of informative presentations and general congeniality, there wasn’t a lot of discussion or debate. One farmer/member made a pre-written statement about component pricing (he believed farmers are leaving money on the table by not demanding a system or premiums and discounts based on canola oil content.) But this topic had been addressed by SaskCanola staff, and no other farmers made comments.

Not only were there no entertaining arguments, when outgo-

ing board chair Franck Groeneweg (a farmer from Edgeley, Sask.) got a little choked up explaining how much he’d enjoyed being part of the executive. I was worried the room might break out in a group hug. I’m not sure if this lack of discussion is the sign of a profitable, stable industry where everyone is happy, a demonstration of apathy, or just a mark of management that ensures all debates are held behind closed doors.

The Manitoba Canola Growers started as a voluntary membership association in 1982, but moved to a refundable checkoff in 1996. The Manitoba chair is Ed Rempel from Starbuck, Man., and its Winnipeg office is managed by executive manager Bill Ross.

The table at the bottom lists key information from the 2014 annual reports of all three of these organizations. They don’t use a common accounting method, so the research and administration numbers may not exactly compare apples to apples.

The national groups There are two national canola groups: The Canola Council of Canada and the Canadian Canola Growers Association, each with its own board, staff and offices.

Why two? They have different goals and different funders.

The Canola Growers is a farmerrun group — a national ag policy organization. It’s funded by the three provincial canola groups, with additional funds from the Ontario Canola Growers and the B.C. Grain Producers Association.

It’s run by farmers appointed by the provincial canola organizations. The current chair is Brett Halstead from Nokomis, Sask.

This organization doesn’t fund extension or research. It runs the Cash Advance program and does ag policy work. One great example of its policy work is their publication: “A Practical Guide to Navigate Grain Contracts,” written to help farmers know what to look for in grain company contracts when they sell canola. This sort of publication would only be published by an organization solely funded by farmers.

The other national group, the Canola Council of Canada, is quite different. Its website claims that it’s the “first industry association in Canada to encompass all links in the value chain.” It’s funded by the three provincial canola associations, but also funded by canola exporters, processors, and companies selling canola inputs like BASF, Bayer, Monsanto, Dupont Pioneer and Syngenta. Currently, the chair is Terry Youzwa, a

SaskCanola director and farmer from Nipawin, Sask.

Having all of these interests working together in one room drives a lot of great industry and market development. And, with corporate contributions, the Canola Council has the financial resources to fund a lot of strong agronomic and research programs.

But, you’ll notice that many of the council’s goals and strategies revolve around increasing canola yield (rather than maximizing net farm income from canola), or increasing total canola industry profits (versus farmer profits). Fair enough. They still offer a lot of great agronomic advice, and we won’t prosper on the farm if the rest of the industry can’t make a buck.

Give the people what they want Every month or so I get a report from our subscriptions department — a list of the comments you’ve passed on when you renewed your Grainews subscriptions at farm shows or over the phone. Almost every month at least one reader says, “I’d like to see more recipes.”

We’ve heard you. We have a new columnist on board, starting with this issue. We’re happy to welcome Amy Jo Ehman as a regular columnist in the Farmlife pages.

A few issues ago we ran a review of Amy Jo’s new book, Out of Old Saskatchewan Kitchens, and I’m a long-time reader of her food blog, homefordinner.blogspot.ca, where she writes stories about the history of the recipes your grandmother used to make (Jello salad, spareribs, maple cream fudge).

This year Amy Jo is learning about the history of wheat and taking a trip to Europe to learn more about its origins. As she puts it, the result will be “personal, travelbased and quirky.” In her column, we can look forward to stories of what Amy Jo refers to as our “rich agricultural and culinary heritage,” and of course receipes.

There are always two sides to every change. Janita Van De Velde is bringing her regular column to a close, but don’t worry — she’s promised to continue to write occasional pieces for Grainews so she won’t completely disappear from these pages.

And, also on the topic of giving people what they want: trucks.

According to federal legislation, every Canadian farmer must have at least one pickup truck in the yard. Preferably two. Whether you’re in the market for a new truck, or waxing nostalgic about an old Chevy, Scott Garvey has you covered. Enjoy. † Leeann

FINANCIAL INFORMATION FINANCIAL INFORMATION FROM THE ORGANIZATIONS’ MOST RECENT ANNUAL REPORTS

Levies collected

Alberta Canola Producers Commission

Sask.

Canola

Manitoba Canola Growers

$5,497,859

$5,745,886

$2,951,349

$319,970

$303,926

$241,032

$1,320,095

$466,010

Leeann Minogue is @grainmuse

Refunds

Lisa Guenther is @LtoG

Canola Council levy

$1,080,057

Lee Hart is @hartattacks

Research

$1,755,748

$1,963,952

$496,685**

Scott Garvey is @machineryeditor

Office, admin., and board costs*

$681,106*

$1,042,817*

$325,899

*In Alberta, this is shown as “board of directors” and “generation office and administration.” In Saskatchewan: “salaries and benefits,” “general and administration” and “governance.” In Manitoba: “Administration: board and office.” **While other organizations show line items labelled “research,” Manitoba lists “sustainable production” as a line item.

MARCH 17, 2015 grainews.ca /

Wheat & Chaff Farm safety

Be the difference as an educator

E

ducators don’t just teach in schools. Educators are also 4-H leaders, coaches, Guide and Scout leaders and other adults with an interest in seeing youth and children learn and thrive in the community. Educators, whether in a school setting or in the community, can be the difference for farm safety.

As an educator, you can help farm children and youth stay healthy and safe on the farm. The first step is to understand the issues. It’s important to understand the roles that children and youth often take on their family farms. These young people may be depended on to help out with chores, look after younger siblings and generally contribute to the running of the farm operation.

What else can an educator do? Start by having conversations about farm safety with children and youth. Ask young people about their farms and help them develop tactics that they could use to address safety concerns on their farm, including ideas about

staying away from ongoing farm work and speaking up if they see something dangerous. Let them know that you are there to talk to about any concerns.

Become a trusted advisor.

Modelling safety-first behaviours to children and youth can have positive impacts on young peoples’ attitudes and behaviours. When educators model good safety practices, this shows young people that safety-first attitudes and behaviours are the norm. Just like budding leaders require good role models for leadership in the community, safe and healthy youth require safe and healthy role models.

Helping children, youth and their parents understand the hazards on the farm is one of the best ways educators can be the difference. Farm safety training and education events are excellent, unthreatening ways to create a sense of awareness around farming hazards.

Sometimes, parents think that their child is faster, smarter, stronger and more capable of completing tasks than

other young people. A farm safety education event can show children and their parents that hazards do exist and without knowledge and training the risks of injury are great.

As an educator, teaching comes naturally, whether it is how to subtract, shoot a hockey puck or build a fire. Teaching about age-appropriate tasks is also part of being the difference. Resources like the North American Guidelines for Children’s Agricultural Tasks (NAGCAT) are excellent ways to inform parents about age-appropriate tasks and capabilities of children and youth. The NAGCAT is a collection of guidelines designed to assist parents and others in assigning age-appropriate tasks for children ages seven to 16 who live or work on farms and ranches across North America.

Lastly, informing young people about their responsibilities and rights in the workplace can be the difference between a successful, satisfying and safe work experience and an injury.

Speaking and teaching basic worker

Agronomy tips… from the field

rights to young people who might be looking to work in a farm setting empowers them to take control of their own health and safety at the workplace. As an educator you can be the difference!

CASW 2015 is presented by Farm Credit Canada and brought to you by the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association and the Canadian Federation of Agriculture with assistance from the Government of Canada through Growing Forward 2, a federal, provincial and territorial initiative. In 2015, CASW sponsors include longtime corporate sponsor Farm Credit Canada, Imperial Oil and their Esso Branded Retailers, Ag for Life, Canadian Fertilizer Institute, Dupont Pioneer, Viterra and Brandt.

Canadian Agricultural Safety Week is March 15 to 21, 2015. For more information about how you can “Be the Difference,” please visit agsafetyweek.ca. † Glen Blahey, Canadian Agricultural Safety Association, www.casa-acsa.ca.

Weather Lore

Seed treatments maximize potential

You might be from the Prairies if...

By Carson Demmans and Jason Sylvestre

S

eed treatments can’t walk on water, but they’ll help to enhance the existing seed quality that you have. That’s why it’s very important to select the highest-quality seed you can possibly get. A good start to the year will put you in the best position to maximize the genetic potential of your pulse crop.

If you have poor emergence or stand establishment, you’ll be fighting an uphill battle. This is especially true in chickpeas, peas and lentils, as their genetic characteristics don’t allow them to have a big branching canopy like canola plants, where they can compensate and fill gaps.

Even if you have high germination and vigour with little to no disease, you might not know whether a disease like Rhizoctonia is lurking in your soil.

Rhizoctonia is very deceptive since certain strains aren’t pathogenic to cereal plants, but will infect a pulse crop. I’ve seen guys growing a durum-lentil or durum-pea rotation that didn’t realize they had a problem until it was too late.

That’s where seed treatments come in — as a way to protect that pulse seed, ensure even emergence and stand establishment, and allow you to make easier decisions when it comes to herbicide and fungicide timing. † This agronomy tip is brought to you by Mark Mercier, seedcare specialist, Saskatchewan South, with Syngenta Canada Inc.

Photo contest

GIVE US YOUR BEST SHOT This photo was submitted by great grandparents Len and Jo Lausen, with the title, “Can we farm Great Grandpa’s farm someday?” These two cousins, Cade Lausen, three at the time, and Josh, 1-1/2, were resting at the end of harvest back in September, 2014.

“Both just love machinery, cattle and horses,” Jo says.

Thanks for sharing this. We’ll send you a cheque for $25.

Send your best shot to leeann.minogue@ fbcpublishing.com. Please send only one or two photos at a time and include your name and address, the names of anyone in the photo, where the photo was taken and a bit about what was going on that day. A little write-up about your farm is welcome, too. Please ensure that images are of high resolution (1 MB is preferred), and if the image includes a person, we need to be able to see their face clearly.

Leeann

Cats know best

T

his all-purpose weather saying comes from Scotland where cats are held in their proper high regard:

Cats are observed to scratch the wall or a post before wind, to wash their faces before a thaw and to sit with their backs to the fire before snow.

In Greece it is said that if a cat licks herself with her face turned towards the north, the wind will soon blow from that direction, while an English weather proverb maintains that the first point to which a cat turns and washes her face after rain shows the direction from which the wind will blow. †

You have eaten all three meals in one day at a donut shop.

Shirley Byers’ book “Never Sell Your Hen on a Rainy Day” explores over 100 weather rhymes and sayings. It is available from McNally Robinson at: www.mcnallyrobinson.com.

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Cover Stories Inoculants

Why nodulation fails When nodules don’t form, yield will suffer.

These recommendations could stop fixation failures

By Melanie Epp

N

odulation failure can be disastrous to crop yields. In some cases, yield may be salvaged.

In other cases, it will be too late. Two experts offer recommendations to avoid nitrogen fixation failures.

Pre-farm failure Nitrogen fixation failures can occur at three points, says Garry Hnatowich, research director at the Irrigation Crop Diversification Corporation at Outlook, Sask. The first is at the point of manufacture, an occurrence that is extremely rare in Canada since inoculants are monitored for quality according to federal regulations.

“Frankly, this is not a major concern,” says Hnatowich. “Reputable inoculant companies all adhere to rigid quality-control procedures and a failure at the point of manufacture is extremely rare, but has occurred.”

Often, he says, in this situation, product has been damaged in transport from the point of manufacture to the retail distributor.

Failure can also occur at the retail level while in storage, says Hnatowich. “If the product is held in unheated sheds, and night temperatures in early spring drop below freezing then rise above freezing during the day, this freeze-thaw cycle can adversely affect the quality of the inoculant,” he says.

Problems can also occur if the product is stored adjacent to loading bay doors or in any other areas that expose the product to direct sunlight. “Again reputable inoculant companies advise their clients on how best to handle and store the products,” says Hnatowich. “Failure at this point is also rare.”

On-farm failure The most likely source of problems is on the farm. Diane Knight, a soil science professor at the University of Saskatchewan, says there are a number of reasons why inoculation fails on the farm.

The first problem stems from choosing an inappropriate species or strain of rhizobium for the crop. Improper storage can also lead

to failure, she says. Peats and granules should be stored in commercial packaging according to the directions on the packages.

“The rhizobium are live organisms that are susceptible to storage conditions, especially high heat, and sometimes freezing,” says Knight.

Soil conditions are important, too, she says. Seeding inoculated seed or granules into dry soil can lead to failure since moisture is necessary to keep the rhizobia viable. On the other hand, seeding into waterlogged soils is not a good idea either. “Too much water will cut off the oxygen supply to both the nodules and the roots affecting nodulation and proper plant growth,” she says.

Soil that is too acidic can also create problems. Although some rhizobia are adapted to acid conditions, Knight says she’s not sure if they are used in commercial inoculants.

Saline soils can affect both survival of the rhizobia and growth of most legume plants, she continues, as can inadequate soil fertility.

“Phosphorus, potassium, iron, molybdenum, manganese and calcium are especially important for either nodule formation or for the proper activity of the nitrogen-fixing enzyme, nitrogenase,” she says.

Finally, soil-borne diseases can affect root growth, especially root hairs. When this happens bacteria enters the root to initiate nodulation through the root hairs.

To avoid incompatible soil conditions, says Knight, careful site selection is key.

“Fertilize with phosphorus and potassium fertilizer as needed according to soil test recommendations,” she says. “If roots are nodulated, but the interior of the nodules are white or cream instead of pink or red it could indicate an iron deficiency.”

If this occurs, test the soil for iron and other micronutrients and amend as recommended. “The red coloration is a compound called leghaemoglobin, which is essential for regulating the oxygen supply in the nodules,” says Knight. “If oxygen is not regulated the nodules will be unable to fix nitrogen.”

Be sure to store inoculants according to the manufacturer’s recommendations, and apply at recommended amounts. “Do not under-apply to save money,” says Knight.

“Also, follow instructions carefully for applying them.”

Finally, buy fresh inoculants each growing season. While it may be possible to store some formulations from one season to the next there is no easy way to determine whether or not an inoculant is still viable. “Most inoculants — maybe all — have an expiry date that is usually nine to 12 months after production,” says Knight.

INOCULANT: Finding the right formulation equipment needed is different. The three formulations give the farmer a choice depending on the equipment he/she has available.”

Liquid vs. granular With the improvements to formulations, Hnatowich says that all three types of inoculants can be equally effective. “Each can still have drawbacks, however,” he says.

Liquids were once notorious for less than desirable performance for two main reasons.

“For one, the bacteria can be killed by desiccation and these formulations were designed to dry quickly once applied to seed, so bridging of seed at planting did not occur,” says Hnatowich. “This rapid drying resulted in reduced bacteria load on each seed and this

was further exacerbated if seeding delay occurred.”

On top of that, liquids were often applied to seed that had been previously treated with a seed treatment. While seed treatments are designed to have an impact on microorganisms, like fungi, they can also decrease the bacteria load.

“The development of enhancers additives has assisted with the desiccation concerns and newer seed treatments entering the market are, generally, more inoculant friendly,” says Hnatowich.

Liquid formulations can still be problematic if the seed is planted into less than desirable soil moisture conditions. Peat-based inoculants are still messy, which makes them difficult to apply, although desiccation is less of a problem since peat has inherent moisture content that helps keep the bacteria from drying. The peat also acts as a physical barrier between the seed and the seed treatment.

“Granular inoculants have been considered the ‘Cadillac’ of formulations,” says Hnatowich.

“Applied in kilograms rather than grams or millilitres, the amount of bacteria that can be

PUBLI SH ER

Lynda Tityk Associate Publisher/ Editorial director

John Morriss

Edi tor

Leeann Minogue fiel d Ed ito r

Lisa Guenther Cattleman’s Corner Editor

Lee Hart Farm life Edito r

Sue Armstrong Machinery EDITOR

When nodulation fails If you suspect failure, you should first contact your retail agronomist and the inoculant company’s representative, says Hnatowich.

How do you know if nodulation has failed?

Indicators include poor vigour, and yellowing chlorotic plants that develop approximately six weeks after planting.

Carefully dig up some roots, suggests Hnatowich. Then, gently wash them in a bucket of water. Be careful; it doesn’t take much to knock nodules off the roots. If there are numerous nodules of good size, but they are not reddish in colour when cut, then the inoculant is not likely to blame,” he says.

“There could be a contributing plant health problem that’s interfering with effective fixation,” he says. “If few or no nodules are present then you may have an inoculant failure claim.”

The bad news is that by the time visual problems are apparent, yield potential has already been lost. “Just how much yield has been lost depends on the stage stress appears and on the remaining growing season conditions,” says Hnatowich. “There is no effective way to inoculate the established crop.”

The only remaining save is a top-dressed application of nitrogen. “In most situations an application of 50 to 60 pounds of nitrogen per acre is suggested,” says Hnatowich.

“Higher rates may only extend the maturity by keeping the crop in a vegetative state longer than wanted and don’t guarantee higher yields. This is usually a ‘salvage’ operation, an attempt to salvage enough yield to break even or better.”

“However it’s a bad situation, and a catch up and pray situation that’s unlikely to burst any bins at the end of harvest,” concludes Hnatowich. † Melanie Epp is a freelance farm writer based in Guelph, ON.

Inoculants » CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

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applied per unit area is higher. Seed treatment compatibility is minimized because most inoculant prills are not in direct contact with seed treatments. And moisture content of the prills is also such that desiccation is minimal. Bridging of the inoculant can occur, so a limited number of bags should be used in the tank, which means frequent stops during seeding are required to replenish the inoculant.”

In general, though, granular formulations are said to be the best choice. In fact, numerous studies have shown them to be superior to the other formulations. “Unfortunately, there is a price to be paid, as granular inoculants are the most expensive inoculant formulation,” says Hnatowich.

“With effective nitrogen fixation occurring in annual legume grain crops the price of inoculants is a fraction of the cost that commercial fertilizer would be in order to achieve the same yields,” he advises. “Therefore, treat them for what they’re worth, not what they cost.” † Melanie Epp is a freelance farm writer based in Guelph, Ont.

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The editors and journalists who write, contribute and provide opinions to Grainews and Farm Business Communications attempt to provide accurate and useful opinions, information and analysis. However, the editors, journalists and Grainews and Farm Business Communications, cannot and do not guarantee the accuracy of the information contained in this publication and the editors as well as Grainews and Farm Business Communications assume no responsibility for any actions or decisions taken by any reader for this publication based on any and all information provided.

MARCH 17, 2015 grainews.ca /

5

Features Crop production

Don’t rush to diagnose winter kill Despite this winter’s weather, you may not need to reseed that winter wheat after all

By Lisa Guenther

W

inter wheat growers concerned about winter kill should wait and see how the plants fare this spring before reseeding, says an agrologist.

“Don’t make a rash decision especially when you’ve got the rest of your farm to go seed,” says Paul Thoroughgood, who works for Ducks Unlimited and farms south of Moose Jaw. Farmers should give winter wheat a chance to recover and check back in mid to late May before deciding whether to reseed, he says.

“It is phenomenal how much the crop can recover so give it a shot to do that because it can often pay fairly significant dividends.”

Before reseeding, farmers should spray any winter annuals they didn’t control last fall, Thoroughgood says. Fertilizing winter wheat early will help the crop recover and maximize yield potential. Waiting until late May to fertilize forgoes some yield, he adds.

An optimum winter wheat stand is 20 to 30 plants per square foot. But a stand as lean as 10 to 15 plants per square foot can still yield a profitable crop due to winter wheat’s tillering ability. Farmers considering reseeding should compare the potential profitability of the late-seeded spring crop and the mediocre winter wheat, Thoroughgood says.

The average long-term winter kill rate for Saskatchewan’s winter wheat is nine per cent, says Thoroughgood. Kansas, the largest winter-wheat growing state, also has a winter kill rate of nine per cent, he says. Those numbers were pulled from crop insurance and U.S. Department of Agriculture data, he adds.

But that doesn’t mean the possibility of winter kill should be ignored completely.

“We haven’t had what you would call a normal winter,” says Thoroughgood. Light snow

For more information on growing winter wheat visit www. growwinterwheat.ca.

The site also lists contact information for Paul Thoroughgood and other winter wheat agronomists.

cover and cold winter temperatures could cause problems for winter wheat this year. On Thoroughgood’s farm, warm temperatures melted snow, causing water to run and pool.

When the mercury dipped again, ice encased those spots, Thoroughgood says, and he expects to see dead plants in those patches.

But it’s still too early to say how widespread winterkill will be. Thoroughgood dug up a few plants on his farm during a warm spell this winter. Most of the plants were fine, he says.

Farmers concerned about winter conditions in their own fields can do spot checks.

Thoroughgood suggests digging half a dozen to a dozen plants

from both a poor and a good spot. After washing dirt off the plants, they should look for white, healthy crown tissue.

Brown leaves do not mean a dead plant “It’s really important to remember that brown leaves do not mean a dead plant,” says Thoroughgood.

The next step is to put the plants on a wet paper towel and put saran wrap over top, creating a little greenhouse, says

Thoroughgood. After five days to a week indoors, farmers should see “new, white roots coming out of that crown tissue,” he says.

Cereal seed is in tight supply this year, so concerned growers may want to clean or put their names on extra seed so they’re not caught in a pinch, he adds.

Despite the abnormal winter, Thoroughgood says he hasn’t been getting as many phone calls as might be expected. Winter wheat acres are down this year, and he thinks most of it was seeded by experienced winter wheat growers who aren’t easily rattled by poor winter weather.

Thoroughgood suspects part of the reason for the acreage drop was the “unhappy surprise” that landed in Manitoba

growers’ bins last fall — fusarium. Environmental conditions favoured the disease while winter wheat was flowering last year.

But the main reason was the late harvest, which didn’t leave farmers with enough time to seed, Thoroughgood thinks. He says seed growers told him sales were brisk. “So I don’t think it was from lack of interest. I think it was just lack of ability to execute.”

Outside the fusarium-infected area in Manitoba, winter wheat produced well last year, says Thoroughgood. “It’s been one of our higher net income crops for the last few years and it did well again this year.” † Lisa Guenther is field editor for Grainews based at Livelong, Sask. Contact her at Lisa.Guenther@ fbcpublishing.com or on Twitter @LtoG.

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Features Crop Advisor’s casebook

Irregular strips of struggling canola

By Spencer McArthur

I

n early July I received a phone call from Dwane, a grain farmer at Davin, Sask., who was seeing a peculiar pattern forming in one of his canola fields. Dwane told me that despite some heavy June rains, his early canola establishment had been excellent — he had achieved his target plant density and the crop was off to a fast, vigorous start. But as the crop progressed throughout June, Dwane began to notice strips developing in one field where the canola was lagging in maturity and was noticeably less vigorous.

“I measured out an isolated strip and it was 80 feet wide, the exact width of my drills,” Dwane explained. “Something must have gone wrong at seeding time, but I just can’t narrow down what is happening out there.”

I decided that it would be best to meet Dwane at the problem field so we could go through the diagnosis together. The strips were evident as soon as I arrived at the field, but I observed that they were in an irregular pattern throughout the quarter, and that halfway through the field the strips abruptly ended. Dwane already had an answer for that. “I had both my drills working in the same field, and I think the strips are due to one of my drills not working properly,” he said.

My first thought was that one of the drills had placed the seed at a level that was either too shallow or too deep, since seeding at proper depth is a crucial component to getting canola off to a fast start. Lower plant vigour or a lag in maturity could definitely be attributed to depth issues, especially if the seed was placed too deep and emergence was delayed.

When I dug up plants from both the affected and unaffected areas, I found that the distance from the point of germination to where the stem turned green (where the plants broke the soil surface) was exactly same in both areas, indicating that seeding depth was consistent and therefore not the issue.

Dwane wondered if perhaps bad seed was to blame. That one was easy to rule out, as the same seed-lot had been used in both drills. Also, the strips abruptly ended halfway through the field even though the drills had been filled with enough seed for the

entire piece, meaning the seed had not changed from start to finish.

Having ruled out both seeding depth and seed quality, I turned my attention to fertility. Dwane explained to me that he had applied a strong fertility program to his canola at seeding, and that the fertilizer rates used in this field were the same as those with his other canola fields, which all looked normal. He had placed seed-placed nutrients to meet the crop’s phosphorus and sulfur needs and there had been a side-banding nutrient application to match the nitrogen requirements.

The fertilizer rates used by Dwane were more than adequate for meeting his yield targets.

I wasn’t convinced that a nutrient deficiency wasn’t at work here, so I performed a close examination and comparison of the plants in the affected and unaffected areas. The canola plants were in the rosette stage in both areas, with the buds just becoming visible at the growing point.

There was less ground cover within the problem strips, but that was mainly due to the plants in the affected areas having smaller, thinner leaves. The plants in the affected area were also a lighter green colour, in contrast to the dark blue-green tinge of the unaffected canola nearby. I also noticed that the newest formed leaves out of the growing point in the problem-area plants were slightly cupped and starting to yellow.

I had a strong suspicion as to what was going on, so I removed newly formed leaves from plants in both affected and unaffected areas and sent them to a lab for tissue testing. The results provided the answer for what was limiting Dwane’s canola and causing the strips in his field.

Do you think you know what’s happening to Dwane’s canola crop?

If you do, send your diagnosis to Grainews, Box 9800, Winnipeg, Man. R3C 3K7; email leeann.minogue@ fbcpublishing.com or fax 204-9445416 c/o Crop Advisor’s Casebook.

The best suggestions will be pooled and one winner will be drawn for a chance to win a Grainews cap and a one-year subscription to the magazine. The answer, along with the reasoning that solved the mystery, will appear in the next Crop Advisor’s Solution File. † Spencer McArthur is a sales agronomist with Richardson Pioneer Ltd. at Balgonie, Sask.

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Casebook winner

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his issue’s Casebook winner is Benjamin Wi p f f r o m A s s i n iboia, Sask. Benjamin, thanks for reading and thanks for entering! We’re renewing your Grainews subscription for a year and sending you a Grainews cap. †

Leeann Minogue

1. Plants in the affected areas had smaller, thinner leaves. The newest-formed leaves out of the growing point in the problem-area plants were slightly cupped and starting to yellow. 2. As the crop progressed throughout June, strips developed where the canola was lagging in maturity and noticeably less vigorous. 3. The fertilizer rates used by Dwane were more than adequate for meeting his yield targets. 4. Spencer McArthur is a sales agronomist with Richardson Pioneer Ltd. at Balgonie, Sask.

Crop advisor’s solution

Nutrient deficiencies behind ailing soybeans

By Russell Thompson

B

ack in early July, I was called out to visit a farm northeast of Dauphin, Man. Aaron, who grows 3,300 acres of soybeans, wheat, canola and barley, was concerned about soybeans in a couple of his fields.

“The crop isn’t doing so well in those fields, compared to the rest,” he said. “The plants are stunted, and their leaves are yellowing and dropping off.”

When I arrived at Aaron’s farm, I noted that plants in the affected fields, while numerous, were generally smaller and weren’t as bushy as those in the healthy soybean fields nearby. Leaves on the ail-

ing plants were not only yellowing but were covered with small brown spots, and were dropping off along with most of the cotyledons.

When I asked Aaron about the field history and the weather that spring, I began to zone in the root of the problem. The results of tissue samples sent to Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Development’s Crop Diagnostic Lab and another agriculture testing service confirmed my suspicions.

As Aaron suspected, there was leaf disease, as the Crop Diagnostic Lab confirmed the presence of brown spot. However, this disease wasn’t unusual for soybeans in this area and typically wasn’t a huge concern.

The real problem lay with nutrient depleted soil. The plant tissue analysis by the second lab confirmed phosphorus and potassium deficiencies. The nutrient imbalance was the result of growing soybeans for two years straight with no fertilizer added. Because the soybeans were under stress, they were more susceptible to a leaf disease like brown spot.

As a rescue treatment for Aaron’s soybean crop, I recommended that he apply a foliar fungicide as well as a nutritional product with the next glyphosate spray.

I hoped this would help the plants fight disease as well as establish more robust root systems which enable them to access more water and nutrients.

Fortunately for Aaron, the weather got better and plant growth improved in the affected fields. The fungicide and nutritional products definitely helped, and generated enough extra yield to pay for the treatments.

Ultimately, though, the long-term fix for Aaron’s soybean fields is a longer crop rotation and adequate fertilization, particularly since soybeans remove so much phosphorus and potassium in the seed. Better scouting for diseases like brown spot is also something to consider, particularly if rotational options are limited. † Russell Thompson is a sales agronomist with Richardson Pioneer Ltd. at Dauphin, Man.

MARCH 17, 2015 grainews.ca /

7

Features Farm management

Transitioning to organic farming It’s not for everyone, but if you’re wondering if going organic might be for you, here are nine tips to get you started down the path

By Patty Milligan

W

hile the number of Canadian farms dwindled by 17 per cent between 2001 and 2011, the Census of Agriculture shows a whopping 66.5 per cent increase in the number of organic farms during the same period. In 2012 farmers planted about 720,000 acres of organic field crops across Canada, 78 per cent of that was on the Prairies. Canada wide, wheat represents more than a quarter of organic production (203,000 acres), followed by oats (127,000 acres) and barley (82,000 acres).

Some opportunities exist domestically, but most organic grain producers grow for the global market. Canada exports approximately $458 million worth of organic products each year. A 2013 study by the Canadian Organic Trade Association reveals that the value of the Canadian organic food market overall has increased 300 per cent since 2006, which “far outpace[es] the growth rate of other agri-food sectors.” Still, certified organic operations represent just 1.8 per cent of all farms in Canada and they are currently unable to keep up with the burgeoning demand.

transition fears, though, are quite different from what organic farmers say they actually experience.

2. Make connections “Talk to other farmers” is the advice organic growers give again and again; that’s what helped them most. Straza also encourages farmers to contact their provincial organic growers organization whose expertise, resources and contacts can help new producers map their way.

And don’t forget to get in touch with the provincial organic agriculture experts.

3. Do the math You can use Manitoba Agriculture’s tool for calculating the organic cost of production for field crops. Saskatchewan Agriculture also publishes an organic crop planning guide.

Current versions of both tools are available on their websites.

Certifying agencies make economic tools available to their clients as well, including costreturn summaries for each soil type.

Laura Telford is Manitoba’s provincial organic business development specialist.

According to Telford’s calculations, on average Manitoba farmers net $158.54 per acre for organic crops versus $83.80 for conventional crops — an 89 per cent increase in profits. According to numbers published by OVCRT, “for every $100 earned per acre an organic farmer keeps $58 while a conventional farmer keeps $31.”

Economics are often the primary motivation for farmers to convert. After years of managing a PMU operation with his father, Alan McKenzie started growing organic grain at his farm south of Nesbitt, Man., in

2002. He wanted to carve out a living on a smaller-scale acreage by certifying organic and earning higher returns, especially since conventional grain prices were low at that time. Even with lower yields and fewer crop acres due to rotations, the math worked for him. For instance, McKenzie says, a 25-bushel per acre spring wheat crop, running every third year at $25 per bushel still makes money in the long term.

After more than 20 years farming conventionally, Gordon

» continued on page 8

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Be cautious but not afraid In November 2014, the Organic Value Chain Roundtable (OVRCT) published “Organic Advantage: Field Crop Production” as part of a broader, multi-commodity campaign to attract new growers.

The report outlines the business case for growing organic grain.

Several organizations, including Canadian Organic Growers, Organic Federation of Canada, and Organic Alberta’s have published the report on their websites.

If the you’re considering making a switch, here are nine tips for moving your grain farm toward a certified organic operation.

1. Conquer your fears Many fears prevent farmers from considering going organic including weed issues, transition time, record-keeping and the perception of fellow farmers. Telford believes the psychological reasons cannot be underestimated because moving to organic production requires “a major change in thinking.”

Herbicides are not available to manage weeds; synthetic fertilizers may not be added to increase soil fertility. The shift can be harder for older farmers so it’s no surprise when Telford says, “going organic is often a decision that is made when a new generation takes over the family farm.” Pre-

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Features » CONTINUED FROM PAGE 7

Transitioning to organic farming Pusch transitioned his southeast Saskatchewan grain farm to organic farming for health reasons. But, he says, “Come October, we did not miss the $150,000 bills we used to have.”

The financial side is what attracted Cody Straza to transition his farm at Wood Mountain, Sask., to organic production, but “after going organic for the financial reasons, you kind of realize the other benefits.”

4. C hoose a certifying agency All organic farms must undergo a process of certification through a third-party agency accredited by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. A complete list of companies operating in Canada can

be found on the CFIA’s website. Certifying agencies provide guidance during transition and beyond, including manuals, connections to mentors and connection to buyers. Many organic producers choose an agency recommended to them by other farmers. Information about certifying agencies is also available through provincial associations.

When McKenzie certified his farm, he only knew of one agency. By now, inspectors are available across the prairies though, Frick says, finding an inspector may be harder in Alberta than in Saskatchewan or Manitoba. Certifying agencies are competing for business so they are highly motivated to retain clients. The services they offer can vary, so Frick advises farmers to go with an agency that suits their style. Farmers may create a cluster with nearby growers; if they use the same agency, they save money by splitting the mileage costs when the inspector

visits. Certification itself costs about $1,000 per year depending on the number of acres and the complexity of your operation.

Farmers do change agencies if they find they are not getting the service they require.

5. Tackle agronomic challenges Growers must develop new strategies. Rotation, tillage, soil amendments and crop selection all take on new dimensions in organic farming.

Farming organically “does take a lot more management,” says Cody Straza. McKenzie believes that by shifting to organic, he had to “get biology working better.

Lots of cover crops and plough downs. Grazing, getting cattle back into it.” When the Pusch brothers, became organic, they also moved from growing only grain to raising livestock because “it works so well for the manure, hay and pasture land.” But Pusch

recognizes “a lot of farmers don’t want increased labour and time and that’s understandable.”

Telford says “It’s a major change in mindset to have to learn how to manage green manures and most producers don’t like the idea of ploughdowns. Having land that does not produce a crop for sale is just not something farmers like to do.” Organic agriculture requires a focus on soil health.

it up. Under organic regulations, he could apply rock phosphorus but the release is very slow. If he could do it over again, he would load up on phosphorus before transitioning and employ shorter hay rotations.

For many soils on the Prairies, Frick says, “it’s a long road back to health.” The solutions aren’t fast and producers must be prepared to re-orient their thinking towards the soil.

6. Consider fertility

7. Select crops carefully

The key limiting factor in prairie organic agriculture is soil fertility, primarily the long-term depletion of phosphorus. When McKenzie first started farming organically, he planted into hayland that had had no inputs on it for years; “Five years of hay sucked everything out.”

His crops suffered. “There was no seed set and no bushels in the bin.” He even struggled to grow good plough-down crops to build

Different crops present different challenges for organic growers. Frick identifies some problems: canola is at risk for contamination; lentils get weedy easily; chickpeas have a high potential for disease; flax has a long season. Organic producers can do very well financially, though, if they can overcome the obstacles with any of these crops.

Frick suggests starting with

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Resources for organic farmers

T

here are many places to find more information about transitioning to organic farming.

Provincial • Organic Alberta, www.organicalberta.org, 1-855-521-2400 • Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development, Keri Sharpe, organic business development specialist, 403-556-4218, keri.sharpe@gov.ab.ca • Saskatchewan Organic Directorate, www.saskorganic.com, 306-569-1418 • Saskatchewan Agriculture, Chantal Jacobs, provincial specialist: organic crop production, 306-798-0945, chantal.jacobs@gov.sk.ca • Manitoba Organic Alliance, 204-546-2099, info@ manitobaorganicalliance.com • Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Development, Laura Telford, business development specialist, organic marketing, 204-871-6600, Laura.Telford@gov.mb.ca

National

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• Canadian Organic Growers (COG), www.cog.ca, 1-888-375-7383 • Canada Organic Trade Association (COTA), www.ota.com, Ph. 250-335-3423 • Organic Agriculture Centre of Canada, www.organicagcentre.ca, 902-893-7256 • Organic Federation of Canada, www.organicfederation.ca, 514-488-6192 † Patty Milligan

MARCH 17, 2015 grainews.ca /

9

Features alfalfa because “you can go there fast.” Oats is also a good choice because there are lots of oat buyers and lots of vigorous, competitive varieties are available.

Surveys carried out by OAC show that organic producers tend to choose crops that offer “good competition in the early growth stages, taller varieties with lots of straw, disease resistance and seed that can be saved on farm.”

Since organic seed is not widely available yet, growers often purchase conventional untreated seed or save their own to start.

8. B e prepared for tricky marketing Marketing an organic crop isn’t as easy as hauling your conventional grain to the local elevator. For Straza, marketing was his steepest learning curve.

“I felt I could use my prior farming experience to handle the soil health and weed management.

But the marketing was new.”

Now he had to track down the buyers and send them samples.

Since the Canadian Wheat Board changes, Pusch points out, conventional farmers have had to hone their marketing skills too, so it might not be “as great a difference any more.”

Certifying agencies provide their clients with lists of buyers. Companies such as Grain Millers, Growers International, and F.W. Cobbs advertise with the provincial associations. Most farmers overcome the challenges of marketing by talking to other producers. Straza says, “You learn about the buyers who have a good reputation and those who don’t.” He has heard of growers who didn’t get paid. Organic buyers are not all licensed by Canadian Grains Commission, so farmers don’t always have delivery insurance.

Finding organic prices is not as easy finding conventional prices.

Telford prepares a monthly list

of organic grain prices that is circulated through the provincial organic networks. An archive of these price lists can be found on Organic Alberta’s website.

Examples from September 2014 include $6/bu. for milling oats, $11.38/bu. for feed wheat HRW, $17.69/bu. for feed peas, just to name three. Telford uses the highest organic and conventional prices to calculate the organic premium for the month.

Organic premiums for September 2014 included durum wheat 300 per cent; feed peas 309 per cent; feed barley 296 per cent; feed oats 233 per cent; and feed wheat 291 per cent.

Trucking isn’t usually a problem; most organic grain is picked up in the yard. As long as the truck has been cleaned, the grain is good to go. Some organic grain goes out on rail T:11.5” cars at designated sidings but S:10.25” rail transport is more of a challenge because the cars have to be cleaned before they are loaded.

The Pusch brothers have held flax up to four years. In the end, they sold it for $36/bu. instead of $21/bu., so they could afford to hold it. That’s an abnormally long time, according to Graham Pusch, but, he says, holding organic grains for two to three years is not unusual.

Because it’s a smaller market, Frick says, market volatility is more of problem. Prices really went down in 2008-09. Lately though, organic prices have been better so you can move them. Frick says, “When things are good, the buyers are very motivated.”

9. Start small Brenda Frick advises farmers to “be cautious but not afraid.” Telford says “Start off small; don’t do the whole farm.”

McKenzie urges farmers to start with good plough down crops to make sure the fertility Is there.

Pusch encourages organic grain

farmers to grow alfalfa and to bring livestock into the picture.

After years of working with organic grain farmers across the Prairies, Brenda Frick offers up this assessment: “They all have their own skill sets and worries.

But they’ve never had so much fun as they’ve had since they started doing it. They get to be proactive and forward thinking.” Organic farming can be profitable. It also can be familyfriendly and intellectually stimulating.

Organic farming comes with its share of challenges. Advice in a survey by the Organic Agriculture Centre offers a hearty dose of realism in its advice: “Don’t expect big yields and don’t feel bad about your weeds.” Despite the difficulties, Cody Straza is encouraging: “Once you get some practice, farming organically just comes second nature.” † Patty Milligan is a freelance writer based at Bon Accord, Alta.

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Features Farm management

Pre-organic-transition fears Farmers considering organic production often have similar worries

C

onventional farmers considering making the switch to organic often have a similar set of pre-transition common fears.

Meet three Prairie farmers who have gone through this process and are happy on the other side.

Pre-transition Fear 1: Uncontrollable Weeds “Weeds are the main thing that keep people from transitioning,” says Brenda Frick editor of Organic Farming on the Prairies, a production manual published by the Saskatchewan Organic Directorate in 2013, “but they are not necessarily the main problem of organic farmers.”

Alan McKenzie runs a mixed cattle and grain operation on 3,500 acres of land south of Nesbitt, Man. He keeps 2,000 acres in grain including winter wheat, spring wheat, peas, oats, yellow mustard, flax and hairy vetch. He knows farmers who “would go down before switching to organic. The thought of two weeds for these guys — they would never convert.”

Because herbicide use is not permitted on organic farms, managing weeds can be intimidating for new organic growers. According to the Canadian Organic Agriculture Centre at Dalhousie University, wild oats, wild mustard, thistles and quack grass cause the most difficulties. McKenzie admits, “I’ve had wrecks some years — thistle fluff blowing all over the place.”

Cody Straza farms 2,200 acres of cereals, pulses, and oilseeds near Wood Mountain, Sask. He doesn’t stress out about weeds because he knows “they can be managed.”

He uses “many little hammers” to

control them, including narrow row spacing, staggered planting dates, long crop rotations, and tillage. Seeding rates tend to be higher depending on weed pressures too.

Graham Pusch and his brother farm 4,000 organic acres near Windthorst in southeastern Saskatchewan. In addition to growing wheat, oats, flax, peas, rye and barley, they keep about 700 acres in alfalfa and 500 acres in pasture. To control weeds, Pusch puts cereal crops onto land that has been in alfalfa.

Not only is weed control effective, but “alfalfa is a profitable crop on its own.” Frick notes that weed control is easier in areas with less moisture; unfortunately, incorporating alfalfas and green manures into the rotation is easier in areas where there is more moisture. Organic farmers must watch and manage weeds differently, but most don’t feel daunted by it.

Pre-transition Fear 2: Endless paperwork Record keeping is crucial to organic certification. Farms can lose their organic status by not documenting their activities. But according to Graham Pusch, “record keeping isn’t as onerous as it is made out to be.

Good conventional farmers do it anyway.” Frick agrees: “If you have ever grown certified seed, it’s nowhere near that hard.”

Farmers must number bins and track what is in them. They keep accurate field histories and maps as well as an up-to-date audit trail.

For Straza having a system is key to managing the paperwork and he’s using information tech-

nology to help him. He’s downloaded Dropbox onto his smart phone which allows him to access his farm records. As he finishes a task, like harrowing a particular field, he updates his records via his phone before he’s even off the tractor. That way “there’s no big panic the day before the inspector is supposed to come.”

Pre-transition Fear 3: Unstable transition period Grain operations must undergo a three-year transition period during which the fields cannot be farmed using conventional agronomic practices but the crops may not yet be sold as certified organic. During this time, farms may be financially vulnerable because organic premiums are not yet coming in to compensate for the lower yields. During transition, farmers usually concentrate on soil fertility and weed con-

trol, and launch their new record keeping systems.

Instability makes any farmer nervous, but Graham Pusch says, “Transition wasn’t a major issue for us.” The Pusch brothers transitioned over several years, from 2004 to 2012. Every field was in alfalfa or pasture for a couple of years so they still earned an income. Because they used conventional and organic farming systems side by side, they had to be extra careful — for instance, they could not grow the same crop under both systems in the same year.

Perhaps because of this staggered approach, Pusch didn’t find the variation in income any greater than the usual yearto-year variations in farming revenues.

With support from mentors and organic organizations, farmers can effectively navigate transition both financially and agronomically. The main thing, says

Straza, is that each farm builds its own roadmap.

Pre-transition Fear 4: Lower yields Yields on organic farms generally do drop but Straza says it all balances out: “The yield is less than our conventional neighbours, but it’s not exponentially less and the premium makes up for that. Plus the offset inputs are a bonus.”

The Pusch brothers’ yields are within 25 per cent of conventional yields; at times their oats and wheat have done as well as conventional crops. One of Alan McKenzie’s biggest successes was growing a 50-bushel per acre wheat crop. The yields are smaller, but, as these farmers indicate, not to the economic detriment of the farm. As producers becomes more experienced growing organically, the yields tend to rise. † Patty Milligan

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Weeds are the main thing that keep people from transitioning,” says Brenda Frick editor of Organic Farming on the Prairies, a production manual published by the Saskatchewan Organic Directorate in 2013, “but they are not necessarily the main problem of organic farmers.”

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MARCH 17, 2015 grainews.ca /

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Features Farm management

Don’t overdo on-farm trials On-farm trials are the perfect way to test new technology on your farm

By Lee Hart

G

reg Stamp likes to keep on-farm field trials on his southern Alberta farm simple.

If he’s evaluating the effectiveness of a new fungicide or herbicide, for example, he’ll make two or three passes with the sprayer with the new treatment and then two or three more passes for the check strip (no new product).

He’ll ground check the strips after the treatments for any visual difference, but the real test comes at harvest when he can measure the results.

“We plan for just one treatment in each of the on-farm trials,” says Stamp who is part of the family run Stamp Seeds farm at Enchant, southeast of Calgary. “If you try to compare two or more changes in your program in one on-farm trial it is too hard to tell which treatment really is making a difference.”

He used to just evaluate combine yield monitor data, and while that can be useful, he also found it limiting. He now uses a grain cart weigh wagon to evaluate onfarm trials. “The weigh wagon is much more accurate,” he says.

“Data from the yield monitor is sometimes hard to read, and it has trouble showing you small changes in yield. So now with the weigh wagon we can harvest crop from the test strips as well check strips and have a very accurate comparison.”

Stamp says it is important to have replicated test strips when evaluating a product or treatment, and also important to look at more than one year of data. “You can have different growing season conditions which can make a difference in the results and even the time of seeding can make a difference,” says Stamp. “We have seen that one year in comparing two seed varieties, for example, that year

A out performs B, but the next year you seed a bit earlier and B out performs A. So you need to look at this information over at least two or three years before you draw real conclusions.”

When collecting yield from test and check strips, he runs the combine down the centre of strip to collect the “cleanest” grain he can for weighing, which helps to eliminate influences on the edge or the ends of the strip that could impact the results.

Proper plan of attack The procedure Greg Stamp follows for conducting on-farm trials is on track with the approach recommended by long-time Alberta Agriculture researcher Ross McKenzie, of Lethbridge.

“The best approach with onfarm trials is to keep it simple and make sure it is replicated,” says McKenzie, now retired and a consulting agronomist. “A single

side-by-side field comparison has some value but it doesn’t tell you the real story. Some guys like to take a 160 acre field and treat 80 acres with a new product and then leave the other 80 acres as the check. But unless you have extremely uniform field conditions how do you know that any difference you see isn’t due to some other change in topography, or soil type, or whatever.”

And he cautions too, that some farmers try to load too many new treatments in one on-farm trial. “If you make two or three or more changes in a treatment and compare that your standard practice, how do you know which one of those new treatments is actually making the difference? Maybe one is making all the difference and the others have no effect. So focus on one change at a time.”

McKenzie recommends whether evaluating a seeding or crop protection practice to make anywhere from two to four passes, one or two widths of the implement being used the full length of the field. And then next to that make two to four passes the same width as the untreated check strips. Identify those strips with your GPS and then harvest accordingly.

“There can be variables affecting results on the headlands or on the edges of your trial strips, so combine the centre of the strip to remove as many variables as possible,” he says. “If the sprayer is 60 feet wide and the combine header is 30 or 35 feet wide, run the combine down the centre

of the 60 foot strip to get the most accurate yield.” And plan on conducting the trials for at least three or four seasons — exposing the treatment to variable growing conditions — to get the best read on whether or when a product or treatment is effective.

Farmers who have some basic skills in working with statistics are probably able to evaluate their own yield data information, but they can also get the advice of provincial agriculture offices, Agriculture Canada offices, local applied research association specialists, or private agrologists for help on how to read and evaluate the information.

Keep it simple “It is important to replicate the on-farm trials in a particular field, and for best results pick areas of the field that have the most uniform soil conditions and topography,” says McKenzie. If a large portion of a field has lighter sandy soil, conduct one on-farm trial in that area, and in another area of heavier soils make a second onfarm trial there.

“Keep it simple, make sure it is replicated and as uniform as possible to get the most useful information,” he says. † Lee Hart is a field editor for Grainews in Calgary, Contact him at 403-592-1964 or by email at lee@fbcpublishing.com.

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These air photos show a couple of different layouts for test strips for a solid on-farm trial. The treatment and check strips can be laid out side by side, or, to check a performance over a wider area spread them out over more of the field.

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/ grainews.ca MARCH 17, 2015

Features Farm business

Emerging global economic trends Find out what FarmTech delegates heard about how the world will feed it’s growing population in the future, and how we can be part of that

By Michael Flood

M

any attendees came to this year’s FarmTech conference at Edmonton’s Northlands with questions about the future of farming: What issues will be affecting agriculture in the future? What areas of the globe will be driving demand? How will climate change affect our ability to feed the world’s growing population? Lutz Goedde, a partner at McKinsey & Company (a leading consulting firm) and a specialist in agricultural economics, gave the opening keynote to help address these questions.

Goedde started his presenta- the audience Goedde said that tion with some startling figures: the figure surprised him too, agriculture employs 40 per cent but that he and the economists of the world’s workers both on at McKinsey had run their calthe farm and in associated indus- culations of global nutritional tries like processing and shipping; demand repeatedly and kept getagricultural demand makes up 70 ting the same result. per cent of the world’s freshwater consumption and contributes 30 The obstacles per cent of annual greenhouse gas emissions.

The obstacles to increasing outHis final figure was the most put are many: supplies of fresh startling. To feed the world ade- water are being constrained as quately over the next 40 years, natural aquifers (like the Ogallala as the world grows to nine bil- Aquifer in the United States) are lion people, farmers will have drained faster than they can be B:8.125” to produce as much food as replenished, and disappearing they’ve grown in the past 10,000 glaciers will mean less water for T:8.125” years. In response to gasps from vital rivers like Pakistan’s Indus.

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Much of the suitable land for agricultural production is currently in use and that which remains uncultivated and undeveloped, mostly in Africa and South America, will need billions of dollars infrastructure construction like roads and railways to make them available for use. Land in many agricultural areas is also being lost at a record rate due to erosion. Climate change will also have a large effect, with much of the world seeing mild to severe decreases in their suitability for crop growth due to severe weather like droughts and hailstorms becoming more common and more destructive.

For all the above reasons global agricultural productivity gains are shrinking. While an average of 1.5 per cent per year increase in yield will be needed to meet the “10,000 year” equivalent over the next 40 years we are currently seeing gains only around one per cent. Making up the difference will require a range of techniques.

Goedde said he and his team have the most hope for GMOs (both in new crop varieties and in crop-supporting microorganisms), refinements of classical breeding techniques, and increased use of “Big Data” and digital technologies to support farmers’ decision making, enabling more efficient targeting of crop inputs like fertilizers and pesticides.

Other trends

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Goedde also drew attention to other major trends in. He said we can continue to expect massive price swings in all commodities in the coming years due to increasingly unpredictable world weather. He also worries that as countries begin to fear for their food security (reasonably or not) we may see high tariffs put in place against food exports, which will only worsen the global supply situation.

By far the biggest unknown going forward, Goedde said, is consumer attitudes. There is a massive disconnect between farmers and the public: most consumers make no connection between what they eat and how it is produced. As a result, they are vulnerable to propaganda from quacks and alarmists who frighten them with myths and untruths about agricultural chemicals and genetically modified organisms. Goedde’s fear is that if these misperceptions are not fought vigorously then consumers (as voters) will insist on ill-informed legislation that will make it much more difficult to meet the world’s growing food demand. It is imperative for farmers, both individually and through their various industry groups, to start educating the public about how food production works and to dispel these fears.

Goedde closed with some encouraging notes about Canada’s agricultural future: while the rest of the world is predicted to see significant output declines due to climate change (without adoption of new crops and agronomic practices to counter them) the Canadian Prairies will very likely see substantial yield increases in the next 40 years. A warming climate will extend the growing season and make it possible to grow a larger variety of crops over a larger landmass, including corn and other high demand staple grains. Coupled with the easy access to water enjoyed by farmers across the Prairies that means that we will be “feeding the world” more than ever in decades to come. † Michael Flood (www.michael-flood.com) is a business writer and columnist. You can reach him at michael@michael-flood.com.

MARCH 17, 2015 grainews.ca /

13

Features Pre-seeding planning

Canola rotations are key Recommended crop rotations lower inoculum levels and risk of disease Cropping system diversity

rop rotation is of utmost importance to manage residue and soil-borne diseases, and many insect species,” says Randy Kutcher, cereal and flax pathologist, University of Saskatchewan.

Knowing this, it’s surprising that many growers still don’t heed rotation recommendations, especially with the potential for devastating diseases like blackleg.

Blackleg is a residue-borne disease, he explains. “Residues can be found on the lower stem and upper root pieces of previous canola crops,” he says. “And these can take a number of years to break down under prairie conditions.”

To control blackleg, it’s necessary to reduce the amount of pathogen inoculum in the field.

Rotating crops, says Kutcher, not only helps to reduce inoculum, but also exposure of any single pathogen to the same fungicide.

“Without good crop rotation there is greater selection pressure on the pathogen and therefore increased risk resistant varieties become susceptible and effective fungicides become ineffective,” he says.

Why are some growers ignoring rotation recommendations?

Kutcher’s guess is that economics might play a role. “Use of all possible pest control measure requires planning well in advance and for many pests, usually involves growing a number of crops,” he says. “My guess is that to be efficient in terms of time management, and perhaps bargaining power for inputs, growers have advantages when they specialize in fewer crops.”

Growing several crops does require more knowledge and experience, and sometimes equipment, which can be challenging for some producers. Regardless, Kutcher says rotation is key. “A general rule of thumb is a minimum of three unrelated crop species: a cereal, an oilseed and a pulse, so wheatcanola-pea,” he says. “Personally, I still think a four-year, four-crop rotation is desirable. When I have been involved in rotation studies of six different crops, there are usually very few plant disease issues.”

In terms of blackleg, Kutcher doesn’t think the problem is so much the pathogen itself, but more the number of acres of canola currently grown in the prairies.

Short rotations coupled with limited space between fields makes for an ideal environment where the pathogen can both spread and survive.

Sexual recombination occurs in the pathogen (Leptosphaeria maculans) lifecycle, explains Kutcher, so that means increased genetic variability and increased risk of new races that can overcome resistant varieties of canola.

Furthermore, it also means there’s increased potential for insensitivity to fungicides.

“The spores formed from the sexual stage are air-borne, so they can spread easily from field to field and probably many kilometres,” says Kutcher. “And the pathogen can survive a number of years on the infected canola residue; two to seven years, depending on the environment.”

Neil Harker, weed management researcher at Agriculture and AgriFood Canada, says that crop rotation is the basis for introducing cropping system diversity.

“Different crops allow different herbicide mode of action groups to be applied, and that is important to reduce selection intensity for herbicide resistance,” he says.

“More importantly, different crops introduce other types of diversity that can disadvantage weeds and reduce herbicide resistance selection pressure.”

For example, he says, winterannual crops, like winter wheat, fall rye and winter triticale that are seeded in the fall, rapidly cover the ground in the spring. “Those crops preclude light, nutrient and water resources from summer-annual weeds that germinate the following spring,” he says. “Therefore, many winter wheat growers do not need to apply a wild oat herbicide; reducing selection pressure for wild oat resistance to herbicides.”

On the other hand, he points out, in areas where repeated winter crops have selected for dominant winter annual weeds — think downy brome or stinkweed — the obvious solution is to grow summer-annual crops to disadvantage those weeds.

“Somewhat unfortunately,” Harker concludes, “a good weed resistance management mantra is ‘when you find something that is easy and works well, change it!’”

There are other important management strategies to incorporate on the farm, including the use of seed treatments and certified seed, as well as keeping clean fields in isolation, away from infected fields.

On their own, not one management strategy is a silver bullet. For the best results, incorporate all management strategies into your system.

“Seed treatments are a good idea to control seed and soil-borne diseases, and to reduce the risk of importing new pathogen races,” says Kutcher.

Ideally, he says, seed treatments should be used to deal with specific issues, rather than as insurance. He does note, however, that it is difficult to determine if and when those problems will surface.

Choosing certified seed is another good practice for mitigating pest and disease issus. Some growers, however, think that using certified seed means that they can be more lax when it comes to rotation recommendations. Kutcher says this isn’t so.

“Certified seed means no or low contamination by pathogens, which should help get the crop off to a good start and to reduce the risk that new races of a pathogen will be introduced,” he clarifies.

“But it does little to deal with the pathogen inoculum already in the field or that is incoming from neighbors fields.”

He notes that there is very little fungicide on seeds, particularly small seeds like canola. In general, he continues, seed treatment fungicides have a limited period of efficacy, some as little as two to three weeks.

Aside from practicing good rotation, isolating infected fields is also important. While isolation

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for blackleg control, in particular, has been shown to work in Australia, in Western Canada this could prove difficult. “In many regions,” says Kutcher, “there is so much canola that it may be difficult to put a 500 to 600 metre buffer between crops.

Even in the best of fields there’s always the potential for disease, which is why it’s recommended that growers take the time to scout.

Kutcher says they should do so as often as possible, but definitely at swathing at a minimum. “For each crop species there are different things to look for and things to consider and time of scouting will vary,” he concludes. “It is a good time to identify many different diseases to record potential or existing problems and plan for the future.” †

photo: leeann minogue

“Personally, still think a four-year, four-crop rotation is desirable,” says SEC-MERE14-T_AFE.qxd 1/21/14 12:45 PM IPage 1 Melanie Epp is a freelance farm writer based Randy Kutcher, cereal and flax pathologist, University of Saskatchewan. in Guelph, Ontario.

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/ grainews.ca MARCH 17, 2015

Features Farm management

Working with returning kids Learn how to relate to the next generation when they come home to farm

By Michael Flood

I

n a high-energy keynote presentation at this year’s FarmTech conference in Edmonton Jason Dorsey, a U.S.-based expert on generational differences and the chief strategy officer of the Center for Generational Kinetics, briefed a packed conference hall on the sources of strife between parents and children in family businesses.

His audience was ready to hear his message: almost everyone attending that year was part of a family farm, the quintessential family business.

Dorsey started off by pointing out that some strife between generations is normal and in fact

healthy — young people need to make a space for themselves in the world and find out their capabilities and limits. What’s not normal is the increased strife we are witnessing now due to technological and societal changes.

The costs of misunderstandings are being increased and threaten both family unity and the survival of family farms.

Dorsey addressed himself primarily to the parents in the audience, the baby boomers (ages 45 to 65) who are struggling to understand their millennial (ages 18 to 35) offspring. To help create better understanding and reduce friction, Dorsey asked them to keep in mind the following facts about the new generation of workers.

Entitlement Baby boomers, Dorsey said, often complain about their children having a sense of “entitlement,” a feeling that they deserve things without working for them.

He admitted that this is a real factor but says that the baby boomers have only themselves to blame; after all, they’re the ones who made the decision to be easier on their children than their parents were on them. They’re the ones who paid for college tuition and phones and first vehicles and, in many cases, are still paying their bills. It’s natural that young people who have grown up this way have higher expectations of what they deserve and lower estimates

of what they need to do to earn it than their parents do.

The situation isn’t hopeless, Dorsey emphasized. It’s a matter of introducing responsibilities gradually and in a regular way.

That starts with not expecting their children to have the same experience and skills they had at their age.

Starting ages The average millennial, Dorsey said, is five years older than their parents or grandparents when they start their first job. “If your first job was at 18,” he said, “they are starting at 23, by which you had probably already had worked at three jobs.” This is because so

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many millennials have spent more years pursuing advanced education, education that their parents both encouraged and paid for.

The problem, Dorsey said, is that each generation bases their expectations of competence on their own experience, so baby boomer parents expect their children to be as professional and work savvy in their mid-20s as they were.

Baby boomers need to drop the expectations of competence, Dorsey said. That doesn’t mean they need to set lower standards but they need to allow their children to mature on the job and grow into their duties and responsibilities. Millennials can help, he said, by realizing that they have a lot to learn about work and that their parents are eager to help them.

Feedback Baby boomers grew up and worked in careers where feedback was regular but very spaced out, typically an annual performance review. For farmers it may have come as a stern rebuke by their parents for their performance at the end of the growing season. They prefer to communicate their feedback in just this way to their children, with long periods between feedback but a large amount of it when it was due.

Millennials, Dorsey emphasized, have been educated in a different way: they’ve gone to schools that have cultivated their self-esteem with very regular feedback and they use social media like Twitter and Facebook which gives them constant approvals and ego boosts.

The way to manage them, Dorsey says, is to communicate frequently with them about their performance, but keep the communications brief — let them know how they’re doing without overwhelming them at any one time.

These adjustments may be annoying Learning styles

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Millennials, Dorsey emphasized, are overwhelmingly visual learners: they learn best by being shown how something is done and how it is expected to look when it is finished. “This is a generation,” Dorsey said, “that doesn’t go to Dad for help fixing their car; they go to YouTube.” Those with smartphones can help them by shooting short videos of how they want tasks done, as well as photographs of how things should look when finished.

Dorsey acknowledges these adjustments may be annoying (he admitted to the audience he had been a great frustration to his own father, a Texas farmer) but that millennials are eager learners when things are put in a way they understand. You’ll likely be surprised, he said, how quickly they come around and become valuable employees. † Michael Flood (www.michael-flood.com) is a business writer and columnist. You can reach him at michael@michael-flood.com.

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MARCH 17, 2015 grainews.ca /

15

Columns Soils and Crops

Phosphorus: new wrinkles If you own the land, adding phosphorus fertilizer will pay off in the long run les henry

tilizer use only took off when we finally realized that all that summerfallow was a huge waste.

1970s experiments

O

n February 8, 2010, my column looked at the economics of large single applications of phosphorus fertilizer.

The economics are good, but the practice is still rare.

Most graphs showing fertilizer use in Western Canada start in 1960. Before that, fertilizer use was sporadic and included only a few acres with a modest application of ammonium phosphate (11-48-0). Almost all fertilizer in the early days was produced at the Consolidated Mining and Smelting plant at Trail B.C. The first fertilizer manufacture was actually a pollution control measure. CM&S was spewing gobs of sulphur into the atmosphere. They cleaned up their act and used the sulphur to produce the sulphuric acid needed to add to phosphate rock to make phosphate fertilizers.

Recent analysis has made it clear Each time I look at the graph of fertilizer use I think of crawling off the Cockshutt 132 combine at Milden, Sask., August 31, 1960. Harvest over, I had two weeks to prepare for the grand experiment at the University of Saskatchewan. No fertilizer had been used on that farm from breaking in 1906 until I left in 1960. Dad was up in years when I left so my brother-inlaw helped seed the 1962 crop.

They seeded one field with two discers. Dad’s discer had no fertilizer attachment but Roy was able to apply 11-48-0 fertilizer.

What a sight — every other round looked great!

At that time Don Rennie and others were using Radioactive P32 labelled fertilizers to find out how much of the phosphorus actually got into the wheat plant.

The results were disappointing — only 25 to 30 per cent of the fertilizer phosphorus ended up in the plant.

When I went back to Milden, coffee row had a question. “If only 25 per cent of the fertilizer phosphorus gets into the plant, what happens to the rest? Is it available for future use?” Then my sputtering started.

Phosphorus does not gas off or wash out like nitrogen, but it gets tied up with soil minerals and we need to use it very year. That was the answer of the day. We knew that seed-placed was much more efficient and broadcasting was a waste of time. But that was all with very low rates.

Annual applications of 40 pounds per acre of 11-48-0 to summerfallow wheat was the practice for years. Nitrogen fer-

In the 1970s the many experiments with high rates of broadcast phosphorus showed residual effects. Phosphorus fertilizer is an investment in the land. If you own the land pour on the phosphorus and it will pay back in spades. But the practice of soil building has never been adopted on a big scale.

Recent analysis has made it clear. A Swift Current experiment started in 1967 shows that over time, 98 per cent of the phosphorus fertilizer added can be

accounted for in extra phosphorus hauled to the elevator.

An article* has put it together in very succinct terms. That paper combined small plot data from fertilizer experiments in Jolly Olde (England) to statewide data on phosphorus use, crop removal and soil test summaries in Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota.

After decades of fancy technology, countless wet chemistry procedures and endless field experiments it comes down to simple math: Using the Olsen P test, 10 to15 ppm is the level to be maintained and 60 ppm is the upper limit after which environmental considerations hold sway. Excessive soil phosphorus levels are usually asso-

ciated with long-term manure applications.

There are several different phosphorus soil tests. They all work well and should be part of long-term planning.

If we haul more phosphorus to the elevator than we put on in fertilizer or manure, the phosphorus soil test will go down and with it the crop yield potential.

If we add more phosphorus than we haul away, over time, the soil test phosphorus will go up along with the crop yield potential.

Speaking of long term, the long-term field experiments have given us this information.

Unfortunately, our decision makers seem to be in the business of shutting down anything but

short-term research. We will pay the price down the road. *Johnny Johnston, Paul Fixen and Paul Poulton. 2014. The Efficient Use of Phosphorus in Agriculture.

“Better Crops With Plant Foods.”

Volume 98: Page 22-24. “Better Crops with Plant Foods” is a publication of the International Plant Nutrition Institute. Find it at: http://www.ipni. net/publication/bettercrops.nsf. † J.L.(Les) Henry is a former professor and extension specialist at the University of Saskatchewan. He farms at Dundurn, Sask. He recently finished a second printing of “Henry’s Handbook of Soil and Water,” a book that mixes the basics and practical aspects of soil, fertilizer and farming. Les will cover the shipping and GST for “Grainews” readers. Send a cheque for $50 to Henry Perspectives, 143 Tucker Cres, Saskatoon, Sask., S7H 3H7, and he will dispatch a signed book.

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/ grainews.ca MARCH 17, 2015

Columns Open field

Fabas: residues and don’ts Check your herbicide history before seeding those sensitive fabas this spring sarah weigum

J

udging from the tweets I read and the phone calls I received during and after Saskatoon’s Crop Production Week in January, fababean fever has hit Saskatchewan much like it hit Alberta about a year ago. It’s not very often that Albertans get to give their eastern neighbours tips on producing pulses, but it seems that the general flow of knowledge on this crop is west to east. General fababean agronomics have been covered recently in these pages, but I wanted to touch on a specific topic.

With acres approximately tripling in Alberta between 2013 and 2014, there were a lot of opportunities for farmers, agronomists and scientists to learn more about faba beans. As Mark Olson, pulse crop researcher at Alberta Agriculture said recently, “We’re learning with everyone else. I’ve never ran across 95 per cent of these weird things we see in the fields.”

These “weird” things include the affects of chemical residue, which don’t show up in research trials because the plots are planned with longer intervals between herbicides and sensitive crops.

In the field, however, sometimes herbicide history is overlooked or the complex relationship of soil pH, organic matter and moisture leads to unexpected results.

doubled up the Curtail M application. The plants in those areas started out healthy, but began twisting, perhaps as they reached the level to where the residue had washed down. Those areas were grass green when we combined the rest of the field.

And while the yield, in my opinion, was fairly good for the year we had, there is no way of knowing if the crop would have produced more if there hadn’t been that history of residual chemical.

There’s several chemicals to be concerned about when seeding fababeans and you won’t find mention of fababeans in the crop protection blue book, because there haven’t been enough acres to

» continued on next page

In 2013, Sarah Weigum combined fabas on September.

In the field I had this experience in one of my fields of fababeans last year. We seeded our beans into a field that had been treated with Curtail M in 2013. I knew from a presentation that Olson and his colleague, Robynne Bowness, gave that clopyralid (the active ingredient in Curtail M) could be harmful to fababeans, but I overlooked this fact when it came time to seed my beans.

We did have a decent amount of rain in 2013 — about 174 mm — which probably saved our bacon.

Overall the crop stand was healthy and yielded fairly well, except in the corners and around an oil well, where I assume the sprayer

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Sarah Weigum

FS:8.2” F:8.7”

photo: sarah weigum

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MARCH 17, 2015 grainews.ca /

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Columns

Germination and disease

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014 saw early frost and snow in much of the fababean growing area of Alberta. This meant compromised quality. Some growers had a lot of black or dark grey beans amongst the typical off white colour fababeans.

According to Joanna Cathcart, germination analyst at 20/20 Seed Labs in Nisku, Alta., the range of germination results tells the story of weather challenges in the Alberta last year. The average germination for all fababeans samples submitted to the lab was in the 70s, with some as low as 10 per cent and others in the 90s.

Some growers found that by colour sorting by hand and removing the dark seeds from a sample, the germination results improved 30 to 40 per cent. Whether this is economical really depends on the situation. If all the beans were going as feed then cutting them in half to save some

for seed might be a worthwhile option. If you’re giving up human edible grade pricing and end up with a bunch of screenings that can only go for feed, the value in cleaning the beans may be lost.

Whatever you decide to do, be prepared to wait a bit longer than usual for germination results from the lab. As Cathcart explained, her laboratory is accredited by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and therefore must use the approved crop testing methods as determined by the CFIA. “Each crop type has specific requirements for temperature, media and testing period,” said Cathcart. Technicians usually test cereals between paper and the final germination count is done at seven days. Fababeans are typically tested in sand and technicians tally results after 14 days.

“Because they are a larger seed they do typically require more moisture and it can

be easier to maintain that moisture level in a consistent way by using sand than a paper media,” said Cathcart.

The germination report will list what per cent of seeds had normal germination, abnormal or were dead. In my experience, it’s not unusual to see a higher percentage of “abnormal” seedlings in a faba bean lot than in other crops. Often the abnormal rate will be accompanied by a note saying “mechanical damage suspected.” Fabas are more susceptible than even peas to the blows combines, augers or seed cleaning plants.

“An abnormal seedling has initiated growth but has a critical defect on either its root or shoot system that will cause it to not produce a normal, healthy plant,” explained Cathcart.

Of course, mechanical damage is just one cause of poor germinating fababean seed. Disease can be another factor. Trevor Blois, disease diagnostician at 20/20 Seed Labs, mentioned a number of diseases he observed at varying levels on this year’s seed lots, including: botrytis, fusarium, sclerotinia and stemphylium

photo: courtesy of

20/20

seed labs

This picture shows two normal fababean seedlings at the top, with five abnormal seedlings below. blight. Botrytis can manifest itself on plant foliage and is commonly known as chocolate spot. Blois said most seed lots are below one per cent disease infection.

Most growers treat seed with a fungicide that controls most if not all of the above diseases. If you’re curious about how your seed will germinate when treated, ask the technicians to find out. † Sarah Weigum

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warrant research from the chemical companies. Most producers have probably followed field pea re-cropping restrictions, but Olson and others think it might be safer to follow the restrictions for lentils when seeding faba beans.

“I would say the sensitivity [of fababeans] is similar to lentils,” said Olson. “I don’t have a big body of research to support that, but that’s the consensus from talking to farmers and agronomists.”

This means if you’ve sprayed a herbicide like Infinity in your cereal crop, you’d probably be safe to seed peas 10 months later (if you’re in the black, gray-wooded or dark brown soil zone), but if you’re seeding lentils — and by this argument, faba beans — you should wait 22 months. Again, this is not based on repeatable research trials — which hopefully will be undertaken by the crop protection industry as faba bean acreage increases — but on anecdotal experience. Considering there’s nothing a farmer can do once his or her seeds are in ground with chemical residue, it’s better to be safe than sorry.

This year I double-checked my herbicide history when making my crop plan. We planned to seed faba beans on Invigor canola stubble that had a glyphosate pre-burn, so no worries there. My concern was the Prestige XC (which contains clopyralid as well) that I applied to wheat in 2013. The blue book says “if drought conditions are experienced during the months of June to August inclusive in the year of application (less than 140 mm of rain between June 1 and August 31 or less than 175 mm in the whole year), delay seeding field peas an additional 12 months (22 months following application).”

As mentioned, we had 174 mm between June and August of 2013; 251 mm between June and August of 2014 and 447 mm in all of 2014.

With the full 22 months and that much moisture between fababeans and the Prestige XC, I am going ahead as planned.

Until we have verified re-cropping restrictions, Olson suggests considering moisture, soil organic matter, temperature, and application rate of residual herbicide when choosing a field. †

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Sarah Weigum grows pedigreed seed and writes at Three Hills, Alta. Follow her on Twitter: @sweigum.

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Columns Reporter’s notebook

Science can be a dirty word The public doesn’t understand science, and reporters often don’t do a great job covering it. Not that there are good excuses, but here’s how it can happen

By Lisa Guenther

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cience is a dirty word these days. Or perhaps just a word that more and more people don’t understand.

And you should be concerned because that lack of basic scientific knowledge is driving distrust of modern agriculture.

“It’s a big, big issue,” Al Scholz told me. Al is the executive director and registrar of the Saskatchewan Institute of Agrologists. It’s going to be the biggest issue facing agriculture, if it isn’t already, he said.

The pressure is on farmers to produce more food for a growing population. How much more food depends on who you ask, but Al said the bottom line is we have to produce more with the same land — and half the inputs — to be sustainable.

“So how the heck are we going to do that? Well, we’re going to do that through research, through science,” said Al. But if researchers’ hands are tied, we’ll have challenges, Al added.

Part of the problem is media missteps. Al said he doesn’t have any concerns with farm journalists, but he does with urban media.

It doesn’t take a lot of digging around to find examples of poor science reporting, whether or not it’s related to agriculture.

I think most journalists want their work to be balanced and factual. But we make mistakes, especially when it comes to science.

Here are a few reasons why.

Controversy makes a good story A few months ago, a local farmer was teasing me about how much reporters like hearing about farmers’ problems.

And it’s true. Stories with a

problem or controversy are interesting to write and read.

But controversy doesn’t always add up to good science reporting.

For example, if all my sources agree on the science, does it make sense to then dig up someone who disagrees, but has no real background on the issue?

Excluding certain sources from a story opens a reporter up to accusations of bias. But always seeking out contrarians and giving them equal weight is not necessarily balanced reporting. And sometimes journalists need to ask sources how they know what they say they know. That single ques-

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We love anecdotes A well-chosen anecdote can frame the story and pull readers in. And sometimes all we have are anecdotes because the research hasn’t been done yet. Many farmers make very astute observations about what’s going on in the field and I’m reluctant to dismiss those observations.

But drawing sweeping conclusions from anecdotes puts us on thin ice, especially if those few anecdotes contradict valid research. Correlation doesn’t equal causation — in other words, just because two events seem to be connected, it doesn’t mean one caused the other. It could be sheer coincidence. This is one of the main fallacies with the anti-vaccination movement.

And even if we are sure one event caused another, we don’t always know that first event will cause the same reaction in every situation.

Data can be manipulated

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Let me give you a real-life example. A few years ago, my mom fainted at a potluck. Her blood pressure plummeted. Her lips turned blue. We had to call the ambulance. The doctors ran some tests but couldn’t pinpoint a cause.

A week or so later, we were at another potluck. She had one bite of salad and started to feel ill. A Benadryl eased her symptoms.

What was she eating when she had both these reactions? Quinoa.

(Who kept bringing the quinoa salad to these potlucks, you ask? Me.) The allergy specialist couldn’t test for quinoa, but he agreed with her observations. And as quinoa is now mixed into crackers and bread, she’s been able to replicate the results at least once more.

It’s safe to conclude my mother

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MARCH 17, 2015 grainews.ca /

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Columns has a severe quinoa allergy. Does this mean people should be wary about eating quinoa? Unless you’re my mom, the answer is no. It’s a rare, oddball allergy.

Strange anecdotes are interesting to read about. But we should be wary of so-called experts who rely solely on anecdotes to convince of us of widespread problems.

Sometimes junk science looks like the read deal A few years ago John Heard, fertility specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, set out

to prove how easily data can be manipulated. He set up a statistically valid research project, applying a “growth enhancer” to canola in place of nitrogen. At 11 of the 20 plots, the growth enhancer bumped biomass yield significantly.

What was in this growth enhancer, you ask? Diluted maple syrup.

But don’t throw out your nitrogen and load up on maple syrup yet. Heard had cherrypicked the results, grouping the positive yields together. At eight sites, the treated plots yielded less than the checks. Plus, he

measured biomass yield, not grain yield.

Heard also treated spring wheat plots with maple syrup.

Other plots received nitrogen.

Those results looked promising, too, unless you looked at the check. Then you would see the untreated wheat did just as well.

The previous year’s soybean crop had left plenty of residual nitrogen in the soil.

Heard showed us how easily data can be manipulated. Sadly, this happens in the real world, with dire consequences. You know that whole debate B:10.25” about whether vacT:10.25” cinations cause autism? That was

launched by a medical researcher who cherry-picked his results to show a link where none existed.

The study was published by The Lancet, a peer-reviewed medical journal, in 1998.

I could add many more reasons why we get it wrong. We work under deadlines, and with the Internet, many journalists have tighter deadlines than 20 years ago. Despite our best efforts, we sometimes give in to our own biases. We generally have word counts that limit how much detail and nuance we can add to a story.

But I’m cautiously optimistic

that science reporting is improving. The Toronto Star faced plenty of criticism recently for running a hatchet job on a vaccine that prevents cervical cancer in women. And, as I write this, The Fifth Estate is promoting an upcoming story that promises to take a critical look at the antiwheat food trend.

If we keep at it, science will cease being a bad word. Perhaps it will get the respect it actually deserves. † Lisa Guenther is field editor for Grainews based at Livelong, Sask. Contact her at Lisa.Guenther@fbcpublishing.com or on Twitter @LtoG.

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Columns Financial Markets — the basics

Investing: not like the casino There is always risk in investment, but being patient and learning the best way to allocate your assets can stabilize your portfolio in the long run

By Andrew Allentuck

I

f you read the financial pages in the daily newspaper or glom through some financial blogs, you can be forgiven if you think you’ve stumbled into a craps game in Vegas. “Our stock tips make money,” claims one blog, the first I found when trying to find a good example. Maybe the tips do work. Studies show that most don’t. After all, if the tips were solid, would the tippers be giving away their secrets?

What I do know is that there really is a big difference between a casino and a financial market if you understand how risk works over time.

It is a fundamental rule that what counts in investing is diversification, which spreads out the risk that something will go up or down in a defined time period, and allocation, which is how much of your bankroll you will put into any given asset or asset category.

If we look at stocks in a period of a few minutes, price movements reflect statistical noise. They mean nothing except perhaps to day traders and that species of optimist went broke a long time ago.

They were cleaned out by high frequency traders backed by massive computing power at major banks.

These guys trade in milliseconds, buying on one market where a stock price may be a penny low and selling where it may be a penny high. They bargain these

Over long periods of time, fundamental financial strengths and corporate growth will show up in stock prices. differences down using computers often across the street from stock exchanges to cut milliseconds transfer time to nanoseconds. An armchair trader cannot compete in this league.

Over periods of weeks or months, significant movements which reflect economic trends, interest rate changes, increases or decreases in company earnings, and new product developments come into play. Over longer periods, the fundamental financial strength of companies shows up, growth of smaller companies becomes evident. The whipsaw lines of hourly and daily price

changes give way to movements reflecting fundamentals.

It’s true for bonds as well. In periods of a few minutes, bond prices may flutter depending on liquidity — how much of a bond is available for sale or purchase in the next minutes or perhaps hours or days for big, patient traders like insurance companies, but over periods of months and years, the bounces give way to steady lines.

For economically viable companies’ stocks and bonds, time is a great leveler of statistical noise and meaningless trading moves. In contrast to a casino in which every game of chance

is the same, that is, every spin of a roulette wheel in which the ball has the same one in 36 slots chance of winning (or one in 37 in European casinos), the odds of making money on a stock move from daily jumps and sags over the true averages to the averages themselves. Stock cycles in which the market as a whole moves up and then down and then up again used to be 36 to 48 months. Now they are longer for many reasons, partly because bond cycles, which used to be a dozen years, have recently turned into multiple decades. We’ve seen stocks collapse in 2000-01 from the popping of the dot com bubble and the 9-11 tragedy, then revive, then collapse in 2008 when the mortgage bubble burst. That’s a couple of eight- to nine-year cycles.

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What does all this mean for investing in financial instruments?

The question is vital, because it is all about time.

First, be patient. Warren Buffett, the great American billionaire investor, urges investors to be willing to wait out stock moves for at least one fully market cycle.

That certainly gets rid of statistical noise and a lot of market hype.

Second, you have to spread your risk. That’s the allocation decision of how much to put in each financial asset category. There are only a few of these: bonds, stocks, real estate, commodities, and then the dump all category of “everything else.” That may be patents and other intellectual property, for example. It may be interesting, but those assets do not trade on exchanges.

Third, within each asset category, such as stocks, you can diminish risk by buying the whole market, such as all stocks on the Toronto or New York Stock Exchanges, the TSX 60 — the big names, mostly banks and energy, the S&P 500 Composite — the biggest 500 companies in the U.S. with tradable shares, the Dow Jones Industrial Average of the 30 biggest companies, or, the biggest index of all, the Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) index of all the world’s big companies.

As a patient fisher, you know

that as your throw your net wider, you can get more fish. In the stock world, it means that even if the cod don’t come, you may be able to get some bass. And this is true.

Individual stocks dance one way, national markets another, and the global economy still a third way, for even when rising or falling, national markets are never synchronized. In statistical terms, for risk reduction, you want to avoid covariance. And the wider your net, the less of a problem synchronous movement becomes.

Summing up these guidelines, an investor who wants to be confident that his money will produce the most return with the least risk puts money into each major asset category. Farmers, who already have land or interests in land, can leave out that category for off-farm investments. That leaves stocks and bonds, commodities, and that catchall of everything else.

It is a fundamental rule of thumb that one should have some bonds, for when stocks sag, money rushes to bonds. In the present economic cycle, the prospect of deflation or the need for liquidity has driven an awful lot of money to bonds which have been dancing upward since 1983 when the Fed and the Bank of Canada (and other central banks too) raised interest rates to break the double digit inflation of the early 70s. Rates have slid down since then and existing bonds have produced what appear to be the longest, biggest run of gains in recorded history with the possible exception of British state bonds in the period 1815 (Napoleon’s final defeat) to 1914 (outbreak of WWI).

Bonds may be like tulips in the Netherlands now, so buy carefully, perhaps in a broad, diversified bond index, say a low cost chartered bank mutual bond fund or a cheap exchange traded bond fund. Match the bond ratio to your age less 20 years so that at 50 you have 30 per cent bonds and at 70 have 50 per cent bonds, and you’ll have a reasonable allocation. For stocks, take the complement, 70 per cent stocks at age 30, invest widely in major indexes like the TSX Composite or the S&P 500 Composite and, to get even more risk reduction, buy the index versions in which every stock is equally weighted to avoid dominance by any one company like Nortel Networks did when it topped the TSX with more than 30 per cent of all the exchange’s value.

Finally, to be very safe, keep commodities investments small.

They are volatile and hard to predict. Oil is down because OPEC wants it that way. Copper and many other metals are priced on China’s demand for them.

Predicting what will happen in Saudi Arabia or what is going to happen in Beijing is beyond what most mortals can manage. For safety and a good sleep, keep your allocations reasonable for your age and risk tolerance and diversify widely. And wait, as a good fisher must. † Andrew Allentuck is author of “When Can I Retire? Planning Your Financial Future After Work,” (Penguin, 2011).

MARCH 17, 2015 grainews.ca /

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Columns Kelly’s AgExpert Tips and Hints

Transaction entry with AgExpert Speed up your bookkeeping by getting the most from the transaction entry screen Kelly Airey

I

f you’re using AgExpert, you’ll be entering most of your daily transactions through the “transaction entry screen.” Assuming current AgExpert users have spent a lot of time in this screen, I want to make sure you have all the tips and tricks to use it to its full potential.

Keyboard shortcuts Getting used to using these keyboard shortcuts, will speed up your data entry.

• [Tab] Key: Using the [Tab] key will always take you to the next box that should be filled in.

• [Shift] + [Tab]: If you [Tab] too far forward and you want to move backwards, press [Shift] + [Tab] to move back.

• [F4]: Press [F4] whenever you have an option to select a drop-down menu to activate the menu list. You can also press F4 whenever you see an ellipsis (a box with three dots …) For example when you get to first line in the transaction entry screen, [F4] will bring up selection of account types to choose from.

Then [Tab] over to Account, and using [F4] will bring up list of accounts to select from.

• [First Letter] of an option in a drop down menu will select that option: For Example: under Transaction Type: [D] will select Deposit Under Type; [I] will select Income.

Setup > Chart of Accounts. They should be setup in the Current Liabilities section, with “account type” set to “credit card.”

• Reference: This can be any series of numbers or letters.

My method is to reference the transaction to my source document. For example: If I wrote a cheque, my reference is: “C #156.” To record an automatic loan payment from my bank statement, my reference is: “B-S Loan #14” (for Bank Statement, then loan number). For grain sales, I use the ticket number as the reference.

• Description: You can type the customer or supplier name directly into this box, however I recommend adding the majority of your customer/supplier names

example, after you fill in their contact information, on the right hand side of the screen you can set the default posting account to “vet and medicine” expense account. The next time you enter an expense to your local vet, as you [Tab] through into the first line of details, it pre-selects “vet and medicine” for you by default.

• Transaction Audit Number: At the top right corner of your screen you should see a blue audit number. If you can’t, go to Setup > Preferences > General Tab and put a check mark in the box that says “show next audit #” > Click Save. Every transaction in the program has an audit number attached to it. This number can never be

duplicated. I like to “Show” the audit number so when I record a transaction, I can see it. TIP: I recommend writing the audit number on the top corner of your source document once the transaction is recorded. For example, on expense receipts, grain tickets, loan statements, the corresponding line of the bank statement if you’ve entered an automatic loan withdrawal or bank charge. It’s my way of keeping track of what is entered.

Later on, I can grab any receipt or grain ticket, and look it up in the program by searching the audit number. † Kelly Airey is a producer and Ag Consultant in Western Manitoba. She offers software setups & training, and discounts on software purchases. Contact Kelly at kelly. agconsulting@gmail.com or (204) 365-0136.

WE’RE FARMERS, TOO.

Speed up your data entry Entry Screen tips • Start at the top: Always start filling in the screen from “Transaction Type,” then [Tab] to the next box. This way no details get missed.

• Date: The program will allow you to record a transaction dated outside of the current fiscal year, without changing the fiscal year in the setup menu.

Simply type in the date. It will ask if you’re sure you want to make the entry — a change to the previous year will change the retained earnings and balance sheet for all future years. Check with your accountant first, if they have already reviewed last year’s books.

• Bank Account: Remember, more than your bank accounts can be selected here. Your credit cards and cash on hand account can also be selected from this list. If you are working on an expense charged to your credit card, the transaction will be a withdrawal from your credit card account. HINT: If you don’t see your credit cards listed here, check how they are set up under

to your contacts list. Click on the box with the picture of the people on it and add your supplier/customer information on the fly. Adding a supplier name such as your local co-op to the list allows you to generate a report that lists the purchases made from that supplier. Sales reports can be generated by a specific customer as well. View these under Reports >Reports Console> Contacts> Purchases or sales. You can also print out mailing labels from the program under Reports Console > Contacts > Labels.

• Defaults: When adding or editing a customer or supplier, you can also set up transaction defaults. When adding your local vet as a supplier, for

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Columns Off-farm income

Oil inventory keeps climbing Oil prices keeps dropping as inventories climb. Speculators will drive prices ANDY SIRSKI

O

il inventories keep climbing even as the number of drill rigs keeps dropping. The official increase in inventory for week ending Feb. 17 was 7.7 million barrels (1.1 million barrels per day) and total inventory in storage was estimated to be 424 million barrels.

At some point in time three things should happen. Some wells will get shut down. Some wells will deplete in production and there will be fewer rigs drilling.

Then oil supplies will start to drop and keep dropping and speculators will start to bid up the price of oil. Short sellers will cover their contracts and the price of oil could go up $15 or $20 per barrel

in a hurry. Then the speculators will reverse their positions and we might see a double bottom.

In the meantime, everything I hear is that the amount of empty storage available is shrinking week by week.

It costs $0.65 per month to store oil but speculators are selling it for $10 a barrel more than it costs today so that still works. We don’t know how low speculators will drive the price when there is no new storage room.

While some attack the business of fracking oil wells, that process is still going on all over the world. There’s a process now called re-fracking where drillers go back to an old depleted well and fix the innards so the well yields a new supply of oil. The estimated cost is 25 per cent of the cost of a new well. Stats show that very few oil fields lose money at $40 oil. If re-fracking drops that cost to 25 per cent that’s $10 a barrel.

Why I sell covered calls In 2003 I learned how covered calls work. During the bear market of 2008-09 I tested selling calls to see if I could beat the bear. Stocks dropped 59 per cent. My biggest portfolio dropped one per cent.

Since then I have fine-tuned my strategy so it is quite relaxed, makes me $800 to $1,200 a week and is very flexible. I could scale it up if I wanted to work and think more.

In bull markets selling covered calls can limit gains. I always go back to the statistics: stocks go up 14 per cent of the time on average, down seven per cent (but usually twice as fast as they go up) and sideways 67 per cent of the time.

Selling covered calls is part of a larger strategy. I read a lot in 2008 about how some bought a put when the 50 day moving average crossed the 200 day moving average going down. Buying puts would have worked for oil stocks last summer. I sold out when my

stocks dropped through the 10-day moving average but the next step would have been to buy puts. Some people made a lot of money as oil stocks dropped in half. The same thing for gold stocks as the price of gold dropped from $1,700 to $1,140 per ounce.

When you know about covered calls, you can buy options and tie up a lot less money than if you buy the shares instead.

Skeptics will say buying calls is risky because they do go to zero under some conditions. But options trade like stocks, so anyone who buys call options can sell them at a small loss. Buying call options is a new skill and I certainly do not use a “buy and hold” strategy.

Over time I have expanded my skill of working with stocks. I can make money with capital gains (as many want to), I can collect the dividends as any shareholder does, and I can bring in extra cash by selling calls and collecting weekly or monthly rent.

This takes some work but I’ve been making about a grand a week as I fine-tuned my strategy.

I’m a student of technical analysis, I follow seasonality and I sell mostly weekly calls but I do sell calls every two weeks or even monthly calls. And I sell shares if they look like they will lose money for me.

Do I miss out on some capital gain from time to time? Sure, but if I judge stocks correctly from the seasonal and technical point of view I sell calls above the price of the day, capture some capital gain and collect a premium from the calls. If I feel the stock is going to drift down I either don’t own it or sell a call below the price of the day to collect a smaller net premium but give us some downside protection. † Andy is mostly retired. He runs a small tax business, manages his family’s investments and publishes and electronic newsletter called StocksTalk. You can read it free for a month by sending and email to sirski@mts.net.

Understanding market bulls and bears

How to feed 50 billion people In this second part of a two-part installment, Brian Wittal looks at how we can feed a growing world population Foreign interests in land Brian wittal

T

his is a continuation of last week’s column about how we can feed a world with nine billion people in fifty years.

As I noted last week, 30 per cent of the world’s food production is wasted. Resolving this would go a long way toward feeding the expected increase in population over the next 50 years, but is that a realistic target?

I can see developing nations making greater headway in reducing waste loss in their systems a lot sooner than I can see the developed nations reducing our food waste issues.

We in the developed world are not aware and or don’t care about food waste. The cost of food and access to it is not a real concern to most of us.

Those in developing countries are keenly more aware of the fact that food is scarce and precious to life and will no doubt make efforts to reduce loss due to waste. The food they save could mean life or death to them.

The reality of the situation is that we may be able to reduce the total waste down to 20 or maybe even 15 per cent worldwide but I don’t think it will ever get any better than that.

The majority of the population growth over the next 50 years is going to happen in the African, Indian and Eurasian regions of the world. These regions have available arable lands for increasing grain production, but over the past several years foreign interests have been leasing or purchasing farmlands — displacing local farmers.

On February 19, a Reuters article began with this: “Mozambique, a country wracked by hunger, has signed away land concessions three times larger than Greater London to outside investors in the past decade, displacing thousands of farmers in the process, said a report released on Thursday.”

The article goes on to say that, since 2006, Mozambique has signed long term leases on more than 535 acres, in deals that are often joint ventures involving politically-connected Mozambican officials. These leased acres will mainly be used to grow soybeans and corn for export to Asia and Europe.

Meanwhile, the article says, the United Nation’s World Food Program reports that more than 42 per cent of Mozambican children are malnourished.

If the population of Africa is going to increase exponentially over the next 50 years why would they give away or lease out farm

» continued on page 23

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MARCH 17, 2015 grainews.ca /

23

Columns Can’t take the farm from the boy

Moving the grain by rail Before he moved home to farm, Toban Dyck didn’t worry about transportation Toban Dyck

I

’m pretty sure not even a rolled-up t-shirt would have fit in my in-law’s minivan after stuffing it and our Jetta to their thresholds with everything we had in Toronto and wanted moved to our farm. It was late in the packing process when I realized we had no room for our bikes. The Grand Caravan’s roof already had two tables and some Rubbermaids on it. Adding a couple of bikes would have no doubt generated anxiety in anyone following on the highway.

We were leaving for our new life on the farm in a matter of minutes, and had to do something.

Mine was a one-year-old, singlespeed Giant, and my wife’s was a 12-speed Trek. Both served us well.

We gave them away. No big deal.

They are just bikes, and we don’t have them now.

In the city, transportation would come up, but rarely. Someone would mention fares, subway congestion, or how the city needs to improve its bus routes or infrastructure, and the conversation would veer toward planning issues or a pat rebuke of suburbanites and their reliance on vehicles.

I don’t feel this way anymore.

Transportation is important and worth talking about, despite the fact my wife and I have one less form of it. On the farm, we wouldn’t be able to survive without it, personally and professionally. Our workshop is full of things that drive. And our machine shed, the same.

When a truck breaks down, we fix it immediately. We have no choice. Our cars are kept in good, working condition because we need them to be available to us at any given time.

Rail transport Farmers have been receiving a lot of flak for whining about how the rail service failed or is failing them over the current crop year. Railroad representatives will say the whining is unwarranted or that it is warranted and that they’re on our side, doing their best to ensure all rail car orders are met and that both the oil and ag industries are happy.

“CN rejects any assertion that it favours crude oil over other commodities or products it transports,” Canadian National Railway spokesperson Mark Hallman told The Western Producer in an email. “CN works closely with its customers to make sure all end-market segments receive appropriate service.”

Change is hard to fight for.

People will tell you what you’re doing is silly, and that there’s nothing of substance behind it.

The less-charged farmers will say

the rail service has been slow for reasons that they couldn’t possibly know, and they’re sure the people running the show are doing their best to get things running smoothly again. It’s very adult.

But it’s also lazy.

Farmers should be passionate about rail service. Passion changes things. Believing things could be better is how things become that way.

The Ag Transport Coalition is a group of association bent on making the agriculture supply chain more transparent. The coalition, comprised of groups such as Alberta Wheat Commission, Canadian Canola Growers, The Western Grain Elevator Association and others, has been publishing weekly reports on rail service. This is interesting, important material.

“Through the first 26 weeks of the current crop year, railways have failed to supply 19,546 hopper cars ordered by shippers,” read the Coalition’s report for Week 26

of this crop year. “This represents a shortfall equivalent to 10 per cent of shipper demand.”

Both CN and CP are saying the weekly reports issued by the partially-government-funded Coalition are not accurate, and that any discussion on transparency and enhanced ag supply chain competitiveness should include them.

I can’t or won’t (you pick) comment on whether CP’s and CN’s allegations against the reports are correct, or if the reports themselves are accurate. But I will say that it’s refreshing to see a concerned group band together for change in a sector that has often left producers feeling quite impotent and discouraged.

We miss our bikes. Transportation, in all its forms, is important. I should have found a way to keep them. †

» CONTINUED FROM PAGE 22

tle with opponents of GMOs that have many running scared because of the fear factor they try to use on the uninformed consumer, primarily in first world countries where it is easy to find the monies to wage these battles regardless the validity of the facts they present.

The only real way that I can see that we will be able to feed 9 Billion people in 50 years is with a massive humanitarian food aid program, because so many of the worlds population cannot afford to buy or access the food they will need to feed themselves and stay alive.

How to feed 50 billion people lands and displace their farming population?

It looks like greed and corruption at the highest levels of government to me.

If these lands produce grains for export, investors can make a dollar selling grains elsewhere — the majority of Mozambique’s population can’t afford to pay market value for grain to feed themselves.

“Too bad, so sad,” I guess.

This is the dark side of the capitalist free market. Where is humanity, compassion and common sense? You can be sure little to no grain or monies from these lands will stay in Mozambique to help the populous.

Effect on your prices What else do we need to do to feed nine billion people in the next 50 years?

Continued advancements in grain genetics would be one more way to move us towards that goal.

Progress in yield gains, nutritional benefits or disease control would certainly help the cause.

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The dark side of the capitalist free market I fear that 50 years will not be enough time to ensure that we can feed the growing population of this world.

What could this mean with respect to grain markets and pricing? Sorry, but I have more questions than answers.

The majority of the population increase over the next half century will be in the third world.

The majority of these people will not be able to afford to buy food.

Can we expect this new demand due to growth to impact grain prices if they can never afford to buy the grain?

There are too many other variables such as weather, war and economic factors that will have more impact on prices than a growing population.

Prices cycle. They will not stay high nor will they stay low. The best thing to do is prepare yourself and become a skilled marketer so that you can take advantage of the good times and survive the bad to live and farm another day. † Brian Wittal has 30 years of grain industry experience, and currently offers market planning and marketing advice to farmers through his company Pro Com Marketing Ltd. (www.procommarketingltd.com).

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/ grainews.ca MARCH 17, 2015

Features Farm safety

Chemical safety on the farm You use them so often they may not even seem to be all that dangerous anymore. But make sure you know just what you’re dealing with

By Shanyn Silinski

E

very year farmers and farm workers come in contact with a wide variety of chemicals.

Often they’re used every season and farmers can become familiar with them, even a bit complacent about the dangers they pose.

Each chemical will have an information sheet and information tag. All chemicals and medications have Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) and Medical Material Data Sheets (MMSDS). They’re available for free download or from your chemical dealer or veterinarian. These sheets are important asw they tell you about the dangers of the chemicals and medications you use every day on the farm.

Handling chemicals requires orientation and proper equipment, more importantly it requires a commitment to using them safely, as well as safely storing and cleaning up after use. Improper handling, storage and disposal can impact more than your personal health, it can damage equipment, contaminate water sources and soil.

Become familiar with the placards and warnings each chemical carries — understand what they mean and prepare

Grandad, didn’t they have safety when you were young?

your equipment for handling and train your staff to be safe.

As a farm owner or manager you are responsible for training and orienting people to the safe use and handling, storage and disposal of chemicals and veterinary medicines. This responsibility includes the use of PPE (Personal Protective Equipment). This can include face masks, impermeable gloves, overalls or other recommended gear. The proper use of PPE can protect from exposure but only in conjunction with proper training and orientation.

Often chemical companies and veterinary professionals will provide training workshops and safety training. It is in their interests that you handle their materials safely.

But on your own farm and in your own barn you can take steps to provide for the health and safety of your people, farm and prevent costly waste or spoilage.

Chemical safety tips Some tips to keep in mind: • Always store chemicals and veterinary medicines in the manner which the manufacturer has indicated. Don’t use non approved containers, store in areas where there is a danger of puncture, freezing,

Hands up in favour of fixing the new conveyor belt.

leaking or contact with animals or children.

• Never mix or use chemicals in ways that are not recommended by the manufacturer.

• Don’t mix chemicals or use chemicals that are past their expiry date. Return them to a safe disposal site.

Take a photo of the label • Follow directions for the time span between application and field re-entry. Same applies for livestock medications — note and follow withdrawal times accurately.

• Do not allow children to handle or mix chemicals — no matter how helpful they are as farm hands, their health is important.

• Do not allow people to use chemicals or applicators before they are properly trained in their use.

• Ensure all applicators and mixers are in good working order by testing and inspecting before actual use. Check all hoses, gauges, wires, containers and make sure everything in good working order before use.

• Plan ahead to ensure you

Tell your team to stay away from the Henderson’s garden party. It’s mostly artifical flowers.

have done your safety checks before you need to start your season — plan ahead for safety If anyone comes into contact with a chemical or veterinary medicine, take a photo of the label with your cell phone, read the emergency treatment notes, call 9-1-1 or transport to the hospital. Call poison control and have the MSDS/ MMSDS sheet available for the emergency medical workers.

Isolate the area of contact and document. Make notes on how the contact happened. If there is a spill, contain or clean up safely.

It is important to have your staff familiar with the chemicals they are working with, and understand the steps they need to take to be safe. They also should be aware of the hazards posed by those chemicals and the potential long term impacts on their health. Be sure you have first aid training, and do chemical safety training each season.

The investment in safety pays off every time you don’t have lost time due to spills, injuries or improper handling of chemicals or materials. †

Watch for health dangers

C

hemicals and veterinary medicines can be absorbed into the human body through a number of avenues — including accidental injection or ingestion, absorption through the skin, or breathed in by mouth or nose. Some chemicals and veterinary medicines are more dangerous to women, children or those with weakened immune systems.

Treat every contact seriously and be familiar with the chemicals and veterinary medicines you use, their safe handling and track their use, storage and disposal in a record book. † Shanyn Silinski

Shanyn Silinski is a writer, published author, speaker, rancher, farm wife, mom and agvocate. She loves working in agriculture, currently in primary production, and sharing about agriculture on social media. Find her on Twitter @MysticShanyn or on Facebook at Photos by Shanyn.

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25

Features Farm safety

Spinning out with farm equipment

W

inter is a time when trucks are often stuck on ice or packed snow. This is much different than being stuck in the mud and requires a bit of a change of perspective when it comes to getting them unstuck. Fast is slow — move slow, don’t lose more traction than you already have and prevent uncontrolled spins and overcorrections.

The first thing to consider is how fast a large piece of equipment can shift and move on ice. Never get close to a piece of equipment that is spinning on ice or packed snow. If the truck or piece of equipment gains traction with just one wheel it can move quickly in an unexpected direction, and if the driver over corrects it can move in surprising directions and at surprising speed.

If your driver gets stuck the first thing to do is keep them from spinning. This only adds to the ice and the slickness. See if they can gear down and move slowly. If you have a tractor with good traction then give them a steady push or pull with a tow rope and clevis.

If sand or other traction aids are being put near the tires have the operator stop while the work is being done.

Prevent this by keeping your yard sanded as much as possible and have your drivers aware of the conditions ahead of time. Anything that tows a trailer, or two like a Super B, can slide in multiple directions Being stuck in deep snow such as a drifted in driveway can offer its own challenges.

This is one situation that is best avoided. Unless you are driving the equipment being used to move the snow out of the way, have your people stay away.

If a piece of equipment gets

stuck in deep snow, first try to back up in your tracks. The closer to the entry point you can get the less work it will be to get you out, and the safer it will be.

If you are good and truly stuck, stop spinning. Exit the piece of equipment and see if you are pushing too much snow or are high centred. If you are pushing snow try shovelling or having the snow behind or ahead of you removed. If you are high centred clear an area in front or behind you, and carefully dig out around the tires, front and back. At no point should you crawl under or kneel under the bumper to dig out the centre areas. As you dig out the centre the equipment can suddenly shift and pin the operator. Clear a path and wait for a pull, following the safe pulling guidelines from pulling and towing from mud.

Another danger to consider is the temperature. If you are digging and hooking things up be sure not to get overly cold, remember the guidelines for working in cold temperatures. Rest, rehydrate, warm up and work at a steady pace to avoid sweating. Be sure that you have called or radioed to let someone know of your location if you are stuck on your own. In winter conditions never attempt to walk for help — stay warm, where you are expected to be.

In winter it is a good rule of thumb to not work alone, and if you are going to move equipment alone be sure to have a check in time and if it is missed that someone knows to come look for you.

Don’t change your destination plans without letting someone know. It is better to wait for help than risk your safety by working alone unsafely. †

Stuck!! How to pull them safely We’re sure nobody has ever been stuck on your farm.

But, just in case, here’s how to handle it

By Shanyn Silinski

Y

ou’ve all read the stories about how a seemingly simple tow job of a stuck piece of equipment turned into a tragic accident. You’ve heard it first hand from friends or families. You may have even been stuck yourself and had a close call.

But have you examined what happened and considered finding safer ways? While the argument, “We’ve always done it this way,” may seem positive without actually examining how you get unstuck you could be just gambling with your life, or someone else’s.

There are three things to consider about being stuck. The first is the assumption that being stuck is unavoidable — we farm, therefore we will get stuck. Stuck a little or a lot but stuck for sure.

The second is that there is no way to prevent getting stuck. It is just a part of the way of the field and road when using farming equipment.

The third is the assumption that there isn’t any way to make it safer. That there are only two ways to get unstuck — push or pull.

All three assumptions require examination because while, on the surface, they are correct, they are also wrong in some potentially deadly way

Another look at getting stuck We can avoid some situations where we get stuck. Staying away from known wet spots, soft spots

or alkali spots is the easiest. Train your staff to stay away from them as well. A general rule of thumb we have for new workers is “if you see ducks don’t drive there.”

We can often get tunnel vision in the field — gotta pick up that last swath, bale those last bales, regardless of the ground conditions.

Knowing the warning signs of soft ground can often help you avoid getting badly stuck. Get to know the feel of your front end, how your tires move on hard ground and soft ground. By being aware of your surroundings you can notice changes in conditions early on and avoid costly situations like being stuck.

There are safer ways to get unstuck. And they are not costly or complicated. First check your equipment. Are your hitches, clevisis and pins in good condition, are they the right size for the implement? Have you changed from pins to clevisis for pulling? Do you have a tow rope? Is it heavy enough for the equipment you may need to pull? Is it in good condition: not frayed, or stretched out? Put the chains away — a tow rope is a much safer alternative to chains for pulling and towing.

A tow rope is much safer, however it is NOT safe. Anything that is put under strain as we see in pulling or towing, is holding a lot of stored (kinetic) energy that can be released unexpectedly. The steps you should consider taking, once you know your equipment is in good order and your two rope is also the right size

and in good condition, is to protect your workers and equipment.

The most dangerous places to be when pulling someone out who is good and truly stuck is in the cab and on the ground within the radius of the tow rope. These are the two places where the stored energy meets people and equipment should the rope, clevis or pin fail.

In order to slow down the release of energy should the pin, clevis or tow rope fail it needs to be muffled. The cheapest way a few producers have found to do this is with a child-sized sleeping bag or blanket. By draping these over the hitch you can absorb and muffle released energy should there be a fail during a tow or pull. Instead of the tow rope flying through the back window of the tractor or into a truck cab, it is slowed down, the energy dispersed and the danger reduced.

(Reduced. Not removed.)

The safest way to get unstuck is to avoid getting stuck at all.

It is also the cheapest. Consider your fields and yard each spring.

Where do people tend to get stuck? Mark these areas and find alternate routes, rebuild roads or build up with gravel, ensure your operators know the warning signs of dangerous ground and avoid getting stuck. Keep your yard clean. † Shanyn Silinski is a writer, published author, speaker, rancher, farm wife, mom and agvocate. She loves working in agriculture, currently in primary production, and sharing about agriculture on social media. Find her on Twitter @MysticShanyn or on Facebook at Photos by Shanyn.

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/ grainews.ca MARCH 17, 2015

Features Farm safety

Look up and stay safe Overhead power lines are some of the most common causes of farm accidents. Be prepared on your farm

By Shanyn Silinksi

D

o you have overhead power lines and guy wires around your farm? Do you know how high they really are from the ground? Are you confident that your equipment is low enough to avoid contact when transporting? How about in the fields or along the roads you travel?

Some of the most common accidents in farm country involve contact between high voltage lines and farm equipment. You might be surprised to know that it isn’t just augers either. According to Fortis there were contacts with high voltage lines 35 times in 2013 and the list of equipment include: air seeders, sprayers, grain trucks and silage trucks.

Summer, spring, winter and fall — each busy season provides opportunity to identify unique hazards and be proactive for the safety of your family, friends and workers.

Knowing how high your equipment is as important as knowing

how wide it is. Conditions may change your clearance and you need to consider them. Things like snow pack or frozen mud can make your clearance much smaller. In winter lines can sag, making them lower than they normally are. Taking a few minutes to look around and assess the hazards can be a lifesaver.

Getting under lines can become a matter of life and death if you haven’t measured properly. A good rule of thumb is to be between 4.1 and seven metres from the line. If you are moving equipment and have to go under lines, let your local utility company know so they can be there to lift the lines if needed.

If you come in contact If you happen to come into contact with high voltage lines here are some things to remember: • If possible, move your vehicle or equipment at least 10 metres away from the line • If you are unable to move your vehicle or equipment stay

inside, and call 9-1-1. If anyone approaches open the window and shout for them to stay away. Have them call 9-1-1 from a safe distance.

It isn’t just augers • wIf you are in danger from fire or need to exit the vehicle do the following: jump down and land with your feet together, never touch the vehicle/equipment and the ground at the same time, hop or shuffle away from the contact, do this for at least 10 metres.

• Remember: never exit into water or snow, stay away from downed lines, remain calm.

Other hazards A hidden hazard you may not have considered is your stack

yard. Are your bales stacked close enough to lines that moving them with a loader, or having someone up top tarping could contact with a line? Not all line contacts involve moving equipment. Pruning trees, stacking bales and construction projects can all bring you dangerously close to overhead lines.

Most power utility companies will come and flag lines which may be low enough for contact in your yard or at field entrances as reminders of the overhead lines. It is relatively inexpensive to have ground mounted signs made as reminders. Utility company linesmen will also come, often for free, to measure the height of your lines so you know exactly how high they are.

Utility companies will come and do training and orientation for farmers — organize one for your community or your staff.

They provide excellent training materials and will share just how deadly contact can be. Provide materials for anyone who operates your equipment, and be

sure to make everyone aware of the location of all overhead lines in your yard, and by your fields. † Shanyn Silinski is a writer, published author, speaker, rancher, farm wife, mom and agvocate. She loves working in agriculture, currently in primary production, and sharing about agriculture on social media. Find her on Twitter @MysticShanyn or on Facebook at Photos by Shanyn.

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MARCH 17, 2015 grainews.ca /

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Features Farm safety

Visitors on the farm Biosecurity is something we usually connect to livestock.

These days grain farmers should be knowledgeable too

By Shanyn Silinski

A

nyone involved in animal agriculture is familiar with biosecurity, especially in businesses involving confined livestock like birds (eggs and broilers) and swine. Beef and dairy have in the past few decades moved towards having stronger biosecurity measures in the face of FMD’s (foreign animal diseases) and increasing traceability for livestock movements.

Farm visitors can be expected to adhere to extreme measures

such as “shower in, shower out” seen in swine operations to suiting up for entry into bird and research facilities.

Often visitors to beef and dairy operations are advised not to enter if they have been a visitor to an FMD area recently.

Diseases can move from animal to human, and from human to animal as seen with varieties of pig flu and can travel on tires, shoes and equipment.

With the exception of research facilities and seed farms grain, oilseed and forage operations have not seen

the same levels of biosecurity — until this past fall when a canola disease appeared in Manitoba for the first time in North America. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency was notified and the farm equipment for that farm, as well as all seeds and other equipment, have been quarantined.

In any kind of outbreak a “zero” location is identified and isolated, a “hot zone” is established with limited access and monitoring zones are set up beyond that. This is the common containment procedure used with livestock outbreaks,

and is also being used for soil and cropping outbreaks.

Welcoming guests How can we, farmers, protect our farms and still be welcoming to visitors who wish to learn about agriculture?

By educating them on what we need from them as good guests, and encouraging that ‘good guest’ attitude between farms as well.

A good guest will not bring biological materials from one farm to another. This means clean shoes and clothing, clean vehicles (tires, under carriage, interior), if you are carrying samples keep them secure in your vehicle. Make sure no dirt, manure, seed or other materials transfer from farm to farm.

If you are using equipment, hauling across someone’s land ensure your equipment is clean

first. Respect your neighbours and their land, as you would expect them to respect yours.

As we enter into a new era of biosecurity with diseases travelling long distances we need to consider not only how vulnerable our farms can be but how we can protect them without losing what makes agriculture so great — our love of farming and livestock, our desire and ability to help one another and our commitment to growing and raising safe food. And of course, our duty to educate and advocate for our industry. Biosecurity doesn’t close doors, it just ensures that going through them doesn’t leave anyone vulnerable. † Shanyn Silinski is a writer, published author, speaker, rancher, farm wife, mom and agvocate. She loves working in agriculture, currently in primary production, and sharing about agriculture on social media. Find her on Twitter @MysticShanyn or on Facebook at Photos by Shanyn.

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/ grainews.ca MARCH 17, 2015

Machinery & Shop Pickup truck special feature

A lighter, aluminum F-150 Ford calls the 700-pound lighter edition of its bestselling pickup a “reinvention”

By Scott Garvey

A

fter 37 consecutive years as North America’s best-selling pickup, Ford hopes to keep that winning streak alive with the “reinvented” 2015, F-150. This year Ford became the first North American automaker to make extensive use of aluminum in a pickup truck body. But the list of design changes runs even deeper.

In creating the backbone of the new F-150, Ford engineers gave the truck’s fully-boxed ladder frame more high-strength steel to make it stronger and lighter.

Sitting on that frame is that body, made for the first time of highstrength, military-grade, aluminum alloys — the kind used in aerospace engineering — improving dent and ding resistance and saving weight. Overall, the use of aluminum instead of steel in the body has helped lighten the truck by 700 pounds compared to 2014 models. So the 2015 version can tow and haul more, accelerate quicker, stop shorter, and drink less fuel in the process.

The idea of keeping full-sized pickup capability while improving fuel economy has become the holy grail of truck engineer-

ing, and all the major brands are now chasing it.

“More than ever before, customers want a truck that is a dependable partner, mobile office and a go-anywhere workshop,” said Raj Nair, Ford group vice president, global product development. “To meet the needs of our truck customers, we created smart new features and a whole new approach to using advanced materials and engines to improve capability and efficiency.”

If the idea of all that aluminum makes you think this new lightweight “effie” is delicate compared to one with all-steel construction, Ford wants you to think again.

To prove its mettle, the company claims pre-production models logged more than 10 million test miles before production began late in 2014. That testing included some tough work like cross-country towing and loaded hill climbing.

The company even claims to have entered a “disguised” 2015 F-150 in the famous Baja 1000 desert race.

There is a pretty wide range of power plant options to bolt under the aluminum hood this year.

At the small end of the displacement range offered by the four engine choices is the positively diminutive, new, 2.7-litre (164 cubic inch) EcoBoost with stand-

ard Auto Start-Stop. (That’s a system that shuts off the engine at a red light and automatically starts it again when you release the brake and step on the accelerator.)

If you ascribe to the notion that there’s no replacement for engine displacement, sit down before you read this: Ford claims the compact 2.7-litre EcoBoost can deliver the same power as many mid-range V8s. According to the spec sheet, this little V6 actually puts out 325 horsepower and 375 pound-feet of torque — hard to believe.

Next up in the engine hierarchy is a standard 3.5-litre (213 cubic inch) V6 with twin independent variable camshaft timing.

Then there is the existing 3.5-litre EcoBoost. And finally the 5.0-litre (302 cubic inch) Ti-VCT V8, which is rated at 385 horsepower with 387 pound-feet of torque.

In the cab You still get your choice of a regular cab, SuperCab or SuperCrew.

Inside them is a totally new interior layout with an eight-inch LCD screen in the centre of the dash, which along with other functions shows images from the 360-degree view camera option.

There are now hidden storage

compartments under the rear seat to secure valuables.

There is no shortage of hightech electronic wizardry either.

Available adaptive cruise control allows drivers to set a cruising speed and use radar technology to monitor traffic ahead and maintain a set distance between vehicles. The lane-keeping system is designed to help avert unintentional drifting outside the lane by automatically detecting the leftor right-hand road lane markings using a camera mounted between the windshield and interior rearview mirror. The Blind Spot Information System with crosstraffic alert uses radar hidden in the tail lamps to detect a vehicle entering a driver’s blind spot while driving or slowly backing up.

The new F-150 gets LED lights for 2015, including a couple inside the box rails. You can also opt for loading ramps built into the box to help you haul ATVs. Ford will continue the tradition of offering the F-150 with a variety of trim levels. The five available primary trims are XL, XLT, Lariat, Platinum and King Ranch.

Chrome appearance packages are available with XL, XLT, Lariat and King Ranch. Monochromatic sport appearance packages are available with XL, XLT and Lariat.

1

And to navigate off road — or on typical Saskatchewan rural roads — the FX4 off-road package can be added to most fourwheel-drive models, improving trail capability with an electronic locking rear axle, skid plates and off-road-tuned shocks.

So, what is the new F-150 really capable of? At the lightweight end of the scale, Ford says a 4x2 with the 2.7-litre engine can manage a payload of 2,250 pounds (1022 kilograms) and a tow rating of 8,500 pounds (3,863 kilograms).

That jumps to a 3,300 pound (1,500 kilograms) payload an 11,100 pound (5,045 kilograms) towing capacity with the 5.0 litre.

Oddly, the 3.5-litre EcoBoost gets the highest tow rating at 12,200 pounds (5,545 kilograms).

Although there is no official m.p.g. or L/100 km rating yet on these trucks, Ford’s own figures show the 2.7 litre in a two-wheel drive model gets an average cityhighway rating of 22 m.p.g. That’s six m.p.g. better than a similar 2008 F-150. The 5.0 litre will deliver an average of 18 m.p.g., two m.p.g. better than 2008. Remember, those are for the smaller U.S. gallons. We’ll let you convert those numbers to litres per 100 kilometres! † Scott Garvey is machinery editor for Grainews.

Contact him at Scott.Garvey@fbcpublishing.com.

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photo: ford canada

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photo: lisa guenther

photo: lisa guenther

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photo: ford canada

photo: ford canada

1. On display in Regina during its Western Canadian debut in November, the new Ford F-150 gets an aluminum body for 2015, making it the first full-sized pickup on the market to extensively use that lightweight material. 2. A new 8-inch LCD screen displays a variety of information including views from a 360-degree camera. 3. A fold-out rear step option that retracts into the top of the tailgate makes getting in and out of the box much easier. 4. With a new design for the F-150 comes the need — as Ford management saw it — for a new nameplate. 5. The F-150 frame makes use of more high-strength steel for a lighter, stronger design.

MARCH 17, 2015 grainews.ca /

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Machinery & Shop Pickup truck special feature

Configure your own Tundra Toyota says it can offer buyers a full-sized truck matched to any need.

With 10 models available, it’s hard to argue with that

By Scott Garvey

T

oyota is providing choices, it emphasized in its October press release, which announced the introduction of its 2015 full-sized Tundra pickup. There are, in fact, 10 different models of Toyota Tundra with enough trim options to create 25 different configurations. “Choice” might be an understatement.

First, there is the 4x2 regular cab SR long bed powered by a 5.7litre V-8, which has a base MSRP of $27,225. This model delivers a 10,500 pound (4,760 kilogram) towing capacity plus an 8.1-foot bed. You can upgrade things with the SR5 options package, which adds a larger, seven-inch display for the audio system, XM Satellite Radio, advanced voice recognition, upgraded interior trim, and other goodies.

The other two-wheel drive model is the double cab SR5 with a 4.6-litre engine and a starting MSRP of $32,875. You get passenger room for six, but the trade off is a lower tow rating of 6,800 pounds (3,080 kilograms).

The eight other Tundra models are four-wheel drive versions that make use of the same two engines, although load and trailer towing ratings vary a bit between models.

At the high end of the price range is the 4x4 CrewMax Platinum with the 5.7-litre engine. Starting MSRP is a hefty $54,805.

The CrewMax Platinum offers up a 9,490 pound (4,305 kilogram) towing capacity behind a 5.5-foot bed and room for five in the cab.

The entire standard features list is long and includes a premium 12-speaker JBL audio system with 7-inch display screen, advanced voice recognition, AVN premium navigation, dual zone automatic climate control, power windows, including a power vertical sliding rear window, privacy glass, blind spot monitor system, rear cross traffic alert, a power moon roof, spray-in bed liner, and on and on it goes.

If price is no object, order the CrewMax Platinum as a 1794 Edition. The 1794 is an “ultra-luxurious” model. The name, 1794, is the year the Texas ranch that once occupied the site of the current assembly plant was established.

The two available Tundra engines, the 5.7- and 4.6-litre i-FORCE V8s, crank out some decent performance numbers. The 5.7 kicks out 381 peak horsepower and up to 401 pound feet of torque. The 4.6 delivers 310 horsepower and 327 pound feet. Both engines mate up to a six-speed Super ECT transmission with Sequential Shift Mode, which is designed to provide smooth shifts.

The 4x2 models get standard traction control and an auto limited-slip rear differential. The 4x4 drivetrain includes active traction control, an auto limited-slip rear differential, and one-touch fourwheel drive to seamlessly switch into and out of 4WD mode. † Scott Garvey is machinery editor for Grainews.

Contact him at Scott.Garvey@fbcpublishing.com.

photos: toyota canada

Left: The Toyota Tundra is available in 10 different models, enough, claims Toyota, to meet anyone’s needs. Right: Interior trim levels range from relatively basic to the luxurious 1794 Edition with woodgrain and leather.

PERFORMANCE BY DESIGN. You can always count on the Brandt Contour Commander for just-right seedbed preparation. Designed for durability and ease-of-use, this heavy harrow is the ideal solution for no-till, min–till and conventional tillage farms.

Whether breaking up and evenly distributing crop residue, warming up the soil in spring, or leveling and sealing, the Contour Commander has superior land following capabilities to ensure an ideal seed bed resulting in smooth, trouble free seeding. Take command of all field terrains with this versatile machine. That’s Powerful Value. Delivered.

03

QUICK FOLDING

The strong and efficient latch system moves effortlessly between field and transport position.

02

SMOOTH CORNERING

01

ALL TERRAIN CONTOURING

The solid pull system eliminates snap back and pulls evenly for a smoother ride.

The U-Joint design allows the sections to contour over hilltops and into steep hollows.

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EFFORTLESS TINE ADJUSTMENT

05

UNIFORM FIELD CONDITIONING

Using a parallel link, consistent and even down pressure is delivered to every tine.

brandt.ca 1-866-427-2638

The optional hydraulic tine adjustment goes from a gentle 45⁰ to an aggressive 90⁰ on the fly.

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Machinery & Shop Pickup truck special feature

Ram 1500 gets a factory diesel Chrysler’s Ram gets out in front of the half-ton competition with a diesel engine option

By Scott Garvey

W

hen Chrysler announced early in 2014 that the 2015 Ram 1500 pickup offering would include a diesel engine option, dealer orders poured in. The company was so inundated with demand for diesel 1500 Rams that it announced it would increase its planned production of diesel engine models to one out of every five Rams rolling out the factory doors.

In 1989 the brand was also the first to offer a diesel-powered three-quarter ton to the North American market when it stuffed a Cummins under the hood of one, which also boosted Ram truck sales numbers.

“Innovation sometimes comes with risk, but being first to market with a diesel engine for the half-ton segment has shown to be a great decision for the Ram Brand,” said Bob Hegbloom, president and CEO, Ram truck brand. “The Ram 1500 EcoDiesel is a gamechanger in the industry, and has proved to be a key to conquest sales over our competitors.”

To keep pace with the rate

photos: chrysler group

Left: Ram becomes the first half-ton rated pickup to offer a diesel engine as a factory option. Right: The Ram’s interior doesn’t change much for 2015. of that conquest of the market, Chrysler says it has sped up production at the Warren, Michigan, plant where Rams are built, so 100 more Ram 1500s a day now roll off the line — that’s 28,585 more trucks a year than it had been building. It is also expanding the plant because of the 52-month sales streak the brand is enjoying.

The turbocharged, V-6 3.0-litre EcoDiesel engine used in the Ram 1500 is manufactured by Fiat Group Automobiles’ VM Motori in Cento Italy. Chrysler has used VM Motori diesel engines since 1992. Remember, Fiat Group owns Chrysler.

In the 2015 Ram the EcoDiesel engine gets mated to the brandnew TorqueFlite eight-speed automatic transmission, providing four more gears than the previous offering. Together, the new power train system delivers a U.S. EPA fuel efficiency rating of 28 m.p.g., torque of 420 pound feet and up to 9,200 pounds (4,181 kilgrams) of towing capability. Chrysler claims that 28 m.p.g. rating is the best fuel economy performance of any half-ton pickup currently on the market.

Of course you can still get the 3.6-litre, V-6 Pentastar or 5.7-litre Hemi gas engines in a new Ram if you really want to.

To help get those fuel consumption numbers down, Ram trucks have incorporated a variety of innovations to reduce parasitic load on the engine from accessory systems. Pulsewidth modulation (PWM) is one of them. It not only eliminates unnecessary load on the alternator but also improves the durability of some electrical systems. The cooling fan, too, takes advantage of PWM, adding a 0.2 per cent improvement in fuel efficiency.

And as opposed to a “fixed” displacement compressor in the air conditioning system, the Ram’s variable displacement type

automatically varies its pumping capacity to meet air conditioning demands rather than working in an on-off cycle. As a result, the load on the engine is reduced, but the system still maintains a consistent cab temperature. The technology also reduces noise and vibration.

To carry a load and further improve fuel economy, the 2015 Ram continues to use an air suspension system, which also provides better ride control and offroad capability along with automatic load levelling. † Scott Garvey is machinery editor for Grainews. Contact him at Scott.Garvey@ fbcpublishing.com.

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31

Machinery & Shop Pickup truck special feature

Nissan adds in a Cummins engine

photos: nissan

Left: Nissan introduced the Titan XD in Detroit in January. The company claims the larger size of the XD compared to current models “stays true to Nissan design language, but on a big scale.” Right: The 5.0-litre Cummins V-8 produces 310 horsepower and 555 pound-feet of torque.

The full-size Titan becomes the second North American half-ton-rated pickup to include a diesel engine option for 2015

GRADING vERSATILITY

®

By Scott Garvey

A

t the North American International Auto Show in Detroit in January, Nissan pulled the wraps off its much anticipated Cummins-powered Titan XD full-sized pickup truck. The fact that this truck was going to debut at the show was hyped by both Nissan and Cummins for months ahead of its official introduction.

With an available 310 horsepower, turbocharged, 5.0-litre Cummins V-8 that has 555 poundfeet of torque, this Titan is much different than current models in several ways. Nissan considers the all-new XD version to be a “warrior for warriors” In fact, even the grille emblem was designed as a stylized version of an ancient warrior’s helmet.

The XD is the first in a line of second-generation Titans that are bigger than their predecessors, with a wider stance and more aerodynamic body style. However, Nissan hasn’t yet announced when other models in the range will be unveiled. † Scott Garvey is machinery editor for Grainews.

Contact him at Scott.Garvey@fbcpublishing.com.

MODEL 1632

Because DIRT IsN’T aLWaYs IN THe RIGHT PLace Reshape terraces and waterways, grade roads, remove snow, dig irrigation ditches or clean feedlots, it’s all possible with the ICON Model 1632 Grader/Box Scraper. Designed to move material quickly and efficiently, 16-foot by 32-inch blade features six-inch forged replaceable cutting edge for wide coverage with each pass.

Two Machines in one - The Model 1632 essentially gives you two machines in one. To go from grader to box scraper, simply straighten the blade and lower the fold-down box ends. Within minutes you’re ready to smooth and level any area.

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Contact us today at 785-738-6613 and we’ll rush you complete product information.

LANDOLL CORPORATION 1600 W. 8th Street / Beloit, KS 67420 / (785) 738-6613 www.landoll.com/icon FEMA Landoll reserves the right to change models, designs, and/or specifications without notice or obligation.

The diesel-powered Titan XD models will wear Cummins badging.

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Machinery & Shop Pickup truck special feature

Small block engine power GM has re-engineered its classic Small Block engine with the new EcoTec3

By Scott Garvey

G

M’s claim to fame in the pickup market is that its trucks last the longest of any brand, which is based, it says, on a survey of registration data. You’ve probably heard it make that claim in marketing and advertising for a long time. That longevity claim may apply even more strongly to one of its engines. The 350 small block that has been the mainstay of GM pickup engines has been around forever, it seems. And it’s still one of the most commonly used engines by those who modify or build their own vehicles.

“Small block engines have been

used, abused, modified and raced in almost every type of car and truck imaginable,” says Jordan Lee, global chief engineer and program manager for small block engines. “Our engineers are able to draw on that experience to build stronger, more efficient, more dependable engines for Chevy truck customers.”

GM says the EcoTec3 engines used in today’s Silverado pickups are direct descendants of the original small block V-8 design, and they benefit from more than 60 years — and more than 100 million engines’ worth — of continuous improvement.

“The latest small block engines are ideally suited to Silverado and to

the tough jobs that pickup customers do every day,” says Lee. “We give customers the power and torque of a full-size truck engine when they need it, then use Active Fuel Management and other advanced technologies to seamlessly shift to four-cylinder operation when the truck is under light loads, making the most of fuel efficiency.”

GM’s Active Fuel Management technology turns 10 years old in 2015. The brand first introduced it in 2005. All of the engines available in the Silverado this year have the option of taking advantage of that fuel saving concept.

For 2015 GM gives full-size pickup buyers a choice of three of its latest small blocks, known as the Gen 5.

First is the 285 horsepower, 4.3-litre V-6, which puts out 305 pound feet of torque and has a U.S. EPA rating of up to 24 m.p.g. Next is the 5.3litre V-8 with 355 horsepower and 383 pound feet of torque, topping out at 23 m.p.g. highway. Lastly, the 6.2-litre V-8, which is no slouch, with 420 horsepower and a torque rating of 460 pound feet. It gets up to 21 m.p.g. on the highway.

GM says it puts engine designs through a series of durability tests that help engineers develop and verify the strength of its components. During development the engines endure severe thermal cycle testing, which quickly cycles the engine between extreme cold and hot coolant temperatures to validate the durability of engine components such as the head gaskets and exhaust manifolds. Then, there is the “hot scuff” test, in which a brand-new engine is run at wide-open throttle with no break-in period, helping test critical engine parts such as bearings, piston ring sealing and bore scuffing. The Active Fuel Management system gets tested too. It’s forced to cycle in

Three EcoTec3 engine options are available in the 2015 Silverado, a 4.3litre V-6, and 5.3- and 6.2-litre V-8s. and out of the cylinder-deactivating feature hundreds of thousands of times at a variety of engine speeds.

If you opt for the 6.2-litre engine in a Silverado this year, you will get the all-new 8L90 8-speed automatic transmission bolted up to it.

The 4.3- and 5.3-litre engines are matched with GM’s Hydra-Matic 6L80 six-speed automatic transmission. The 6.2-litre engine and 8-speed transmission combo will give a Silverado a 12,000 pound (6,000 kilogram) trailer towing rating. GM also offers an available trailer towing package, which features a 247.9 mm (9.76-inch) rear axle, heavy-duty rear springs, revised shock tuning, enhanced cooling and an integrated trailer brake controller. Wider trailering mirrors and better back-up lighting are also an option.

Last year GM introduced a long list of updates from the frame to new body styling, which carry

over into this year’s models. But there are still a host of other new options and features for 2015.

The 2015 Silverado is offered in WT (Work Truck), LS, LT and LTZ trim levels, along with Z71 and High Country models. All three cab styles and box configurations are available in WT, LS and LT trim, with LTZ reserved for double and crew cab models. WT models get black bumpers, door handles and outside mirrors. Chrome bumpers are standard on LS, LT and LTZ trims.

For the ultimate in connectivity, GM’s MyLink is available. It offers OnStar with 4G LTE and standard built-in Wi-Fi hotspot.

That creates a mobile Internet hub for vehicle occupants. The hotspot is on whenever the truck is on.

Buyers get a three-month, threegigabyte data trial. † Scott Garvey is machinery editor for Grainews.

Contact him at Scott.Garvey@fbcpublishing.com.

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photos: gm

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1: The 2015 Silverado is available with a 8-speed transmission when the truck is equipped with the 6.2-litre EcoTec3 engine. 2: Silverado interiors are available in a range of trim features from the basic WT (work truck) plain Jane to the luxurious High Country option with heated and cooled leather seats. 3: GM Canada covered a Silverado in chrome wrap to make a special appearance at a Canadian event in mid 2014. It definitely turned heads.

MARCH 17, 2015 grainews.ca /

33

Machinery & Shop Pickup truck special feature

Ram launches the 1500 Rebel

IT PAYS TO LISTEN FOR BLOCKAGE.

Ram engineers stroke building a unique off-road truck off of their to-do list with the launch of the Rebel

The Wireless Blockage and Flow Monitor from Intelligent Ag uses patent-pending acoustic sensors to instantly detect blockages or reduced flow, anywhere in your air seeder, fertilizer applicator or box drill. Easy to install and simple to use, this system utilizes Wi-Fi technology and robust rubber tubing to take wire problems out of play, and your iPad functions as its versatile in-cab monitor.

Keep your ears open, and never turn a blind eye to a blocked implement. You’ll put more in the ground, and get more profit out of it.

By Scott Garvey

O

ffering an off-road-style package on the Ram 1500 has been on our to-do list for some time but the right combination didn’t present itself until now,” said Bob Hegbloom, president and CEO of the Ram Truck Brand. “The Rebel drops right into a core segment of the truck market with unique design cues and can-do attitude backed by Ram Truck engineering.”

“

Meant to compete with Ford’s Raptor To give the new Rebel that “can do” attitude, engineers added an extra inch to the standard Ram ride height and slipped 33-inch tires under the fenders. It also sets itself apart from the pack of runof-the-mill models with unique grille, bumper and tailgate styling.

Clearly, this truck is meant to compete with Ford’s Raptor.

The Rebel gets a host of other unique features ranging from its undercarriage to the interior layout.

And under the hood you can opt for a 3.6-litre V-6 or an iconic 5.7-litre Hemi. Both are mated to the eightspeed TorqueFlite transmission.

Rebels will begin arriving at Chrysler dealerships early in the second half of 2015. †

To find a dealer near you, visit IntelligentAg.com or call: 306-978-0872 (N. SK, AB, BC) 306-546-2497 (S. SK, MB, ON)

Scott Garvey is machinery editor for Grainews.

Contact him at Scott.Garvey@fbcpublishing.com.

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/ grainews.ca MARCH 17, 2015

Machinery & Shop Machine history

Chey’s 1967 pickup

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Here’s a brief look back at what kind of pickup farmers could buy almost five decades ago

By Scott Garvey

Y

our new pickup probably has four-wheel drive with a very efficient engine and a luxurious interior. It goes without saying it has air conditioning and an impressive bluetooth-capable sound system. Luxury has been the ongoing sales pitch automakers have been using to sell their trucks ever since the 1950s. It’s just that luxury keeps getting an updated definition. If you’ve come to take the kinds of features your current pickup has for granted, These images are a reminder of what luxury meant for Chevrolet’s 1967 pickup. †

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Scott Garvey is machinery editor for Grainews. Contact him at Scott.Garvey@ fbcmachinery.com. photos: gm canada

1: Chevrolet’s advertising in 1967 emphasized the car-like comfort of its C-10 pickup, saying, “You could call it a second car with a dual personality.” 2: Interiors in the 1960s were pretty plain by today’s standard. 3: A four-wheel drive version of Chevy’s half-ton pickup was available in 1967, designated the K-10, but only 5,563 were sold, compared to 278,044 C-10, two-wheel drive models, according to oldride.com. Retail price for a Fleetside 4x4 with an 8-foot box was US$3,088, compared to just $2,408 for a C-10.

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Sit back, dial up your favourite station … and fnish 100 acres by lunch.

Whether it’s unbearably hot, miserably cold or somewhere in between, long days won’t make a dent in your resolve when you’re running a 6R. You’ll have big-time performance for tough jobs … and plenty of comfort for whatever Mother Nature throws your way.

Redesigned hydraulic stack for simplicity and improved visibility.

ComfortView™ Cab: The name says it all The ComfortView cab is ideal for the highhour user. It’s spacious and user-friendly.

The automotive style gauges, easy-to-access controls and standard features such as tilt, telescoping steering wheel and adjustable air seat get you in the right position. And for greater rearward visibility, get 30 degrees of right-hand seat swivel with CommandARM™ equipped cabs.

Power where you need it With hitch lift capacity of up to 11,990 pounds (5,438 kg) and hydraulic fow of up to 41 gpm (155 lpm), you’ll have power for big implements and fast cycle times.

The 6R features a closedcenter, pressure and fow compensated hydraulic system for effciency, and reliability.

New PowerTech™ engines put productivity in the driver’s seat The 6R is all about productivity. With models from 105 to 215 hp, you’ll fnd the size to ft your operation, each with a power bulge that responds instantly to increased horsepower requirements. All engines also include Intelligent Power Management for a boost of up to 40 extra horses.

Get the right gear for the job A tractor this versatile needs a transmission to match. That’s why the 6R comes standard with the AutoQuad™ PLUS. You get four power-shiftable gears in each range. Or for even more fne-tuning, try the DirectDrive™.

It gives you the convenience of our Infnitely Variable Transmission™ (IVT) with the effciency of an all-mechanical transmission.

C rner Corner offce comfort comes standard.

Just pick p one of three ranges thre and go automatic.

Or select manual mode for more control. You can also choose other options, including a full IVT, and a 50 kmh (31 mph) option for fast transport

GreenStar™ ready for precision* With the GreenStar and AutoTrac™ options, you can step into precision quickly and easily.

The GS3 Command-Center™ and 7 or 10 inch display helps you program and monitor many tractor functions as well as compatible implements. You can also run a variety of precision software applications for tractor control, mapping, and documentation.

Get IVT convenience and mechanical effciency with DirectDrive.

Available with technology that helps maximize your effciency.

Comfortable and in command Don’t let weather conditions or tough chores slow you down. Get the comfort, power, and convenience of a 6R and you’ll be ready to take on the day … whatever the day brings.

The 6R can take on tillage or planting duties and utility chores with authority.

Work in comfort.

Work without limits.

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*Requires the installation of TLS front axle with brake.

JohnDeere.ca

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Machinery & Shop Pickup truck special feature

A brand new Colorado for 2015 GM stakes a claim in the small-truck marketplace with a “mid-sized” Colorado 1

photos: gm canada

By Scott Garvey

G

M describes its 2015 Colorado as an all-new, midsize pickup with the style and versatility of a truck and the refinement, manoeuvrability and efficiency of a crossover. The brand hopes it will appeal to those who want some respectable capability in a truck but are looking for ease of manoeuvrability and better fuel economy ratings.

The 200 horsepower, 2.5-litre, two-wheel drive Colorado models get a fuel consumption rating of 8.8 litres per 100 kilometres on the highway. That jumps slightly to 9.2 litres per 100 kilometres for the 305 horsepower, 3.6-litre V-6 models, making driving one of these to town a little easier on the pocketbook than piloting a full-sized truck.

Despite its smaller size, the Colorado can still muster up a decent trailer towing rating of 7,000 pounds (3,175 kilograms) with the V-6 under the hood.

“Many people like the ‘can-do’ spirit of a truck, but they want a vehicle that is easier to manoeuvre in traffic and easier to park at work or at home,” says Tony Johnson, Colorado marketing manager.

“For them, bigger is not necessarily better.”

How much smaller is a Col-

Tundra

orado? The cab and bed configuration choices include an extended cab model with a 6-foot, 2-inch bed, a crew cab with a 5-foot, 2-inch bed and a crew cab with a 6-foot, 2-inch bed. With the tailgate down, the longest bed can haul 8-foot-long loads.

Models and trim levels include the base WT, LT and Z71. The off-road-inspired Z71 features a gunmetal grille surround — a change from the chrome standard on the other models — projector headlamps and 17-inch aluminum wheels with all-terrain tires.

A pretty good chunk of the options available on its big brother, the Silverado, trickle down to the Colorado, too. Things like a spray-in bed liner, EZ lift-and-lower tailgate and connectivity features inside the cab.

The Colorado also gets six standard airbags and GM’s StabilliTrack and trailer sway control systems for safety along with Forward Collision Alert and Lane Departure Warning, which uses camera-based technology to warn a driver of potential crash threats.

The Colorado recently began production at GM’s Wentzville assembly plant and hit the market in late 2014. †

2

1: GM began producing the all-new Colorado in time for a market release in late 2014. 2: GM recently revealed this Colorado concept truck in Los Angeles.

It’s designed for those who want serious off-road capability, and it’s powered by a 181 horsepower 2.8-litre Duramax diesel with a six-speed transmission.

This version gets a stance four inches wider than a standard Z71 Colorado. But will it see production? 3: The Colorado still offers a reasonable amount of cab space, although rear seat legroom is limited, to say the least.

3

Scott Garvey is machinery editor for Grainews.

Contact him at Scott.Garvey@fbcpulishing.com.

Tundra

MARCH 17, 2015 grainews.ca /

37

Cattleman’s Corner MARKET FACTORS

COOL may be the right direction Labelling of origin and other functional characteristics will become more important

BY GERALD KLASSEN

T

he confirmed new case of BSE in Alberta on Feb. 13 has caused Chian, Peru, Belarus and Taiwan to place temporary restrictions on Canadian beef.

South Korea temporarily suspended imports immediately after the confirmed case while Indonesia has placed temporary restrictions on some non-edible meat products.

The ability to persuade or educate the consumer is extremely challenging at the best of times and there is a fair amount of fearmongering-type advertising constantly working against cattle producers. While this recent case of BSE once again reinforced the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency’s (CCIA) traceability program, it is important to remember there could always be another strain of bacteria or disease that causes trade disruptions. It is important that cattle producers, whether large or small, are on the same track, across the country.

The livestock traceability program has three pillars — premise identification, animal identification and animal movement. These three pillars ensure an adverse disease outbreak is managed efficiently and effectively to minimize trade disruptions. Age verification is also part of this process.

Saskatchewan does not have mandatory premise ID and producer groups are lobbying government for this legislation. Most producers understand why this is necessary for food and industry safety, which I don’t have to discuss.

CHANGE IN DIETS Canada and the U.S. have an aging population. When the baby boomers were in their prime earning years, beef was a staple in their diet. Once people move into their retirement years, they eat less beef and in many cases, health issues become more of a concern. As people get older, their bodies become more sensitive to certain foods or specific food additives. For example, there are studies in regards to red meat and certain types of cancers.

Even young adults are watching their diets more closely than ever before, despite the rising obesity epidemic, which can be attributed to a whole dictionary of health problems. Once people enter their late 20s and 30s, after their metabolism starts to slow down, body weight becomes more of a personal issue. Different ethnicities living within North America may not always have the same cultural view of beef. It is not always a staple item, especially when these immigrants have lower income.

Research is being conducted on “foodceuticals” and functional foods regarding beef products.

Entering into this environment is also a need for the traceability program, which might be considered value added processing. This is the food trend of the future with rising health care costs.

Functional food products are outpacing the traditional processed food market, according to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

Health Canada defines a functional food as “a conventional food that is consumed as part of a usual diet, and is demonstrated to have physiological benefits and/or reduces the risk of chronic disease beyond basic nutritional functions.”

LABELLING PART OF TREND I encourage beef producers to check out and read articles on the BCRC (Beef Cattle Research Council) website. I strongly believe in the future we will see beef products on the retail shelf with the functional characteristic labelled both in Canada and in foreign markets. I’ve mentioned in the past articles that people can have their DNA analyzed and

then have recommendations on which foods will be more beneficial for their DNA. Labelling will be become more important as this DNA becomes more common.

Country-of-origin labelling (COOL) can be considered a doubleedged sword. There has been a fair amount of resources arguing against the U.S. policy regarding COOL. However, consumers are becoming more conscious of where their food is grown, how it was produced and how animals were treated.

In some cases, consumers also want to feel at ease that everyone involved made a fair living. I wonder if fighting COOL is counterproductive longer term because it is going against modern food standards. Cattle producers are

going through all the work for traceability and yet in the end, we want the foreign consumer to be “origin blind” about the product they’re eating.

The future trend of food production and processing is more labels and functional characteristics on the food. COOL is simply step one. In the future, the consumer will naturally demand COOL and more. The U.S. is implementing a socialist health care policy; food labelling and traceability can bring down health costs if there is an E. coli outbreak or some other problem. We’ve all had discussions with Americans that don’t know where Canada is on the globe or think that Canada is a Third World country. In any case, this

isn’t a reason to go backward in food labelling.

Traceability is important to manage a disease outbreak. BSE is in the forefront but there could be other diseases or related problems in the future. Traceability can also be considered value-added processing. Functional foods are the future trend in food production and producers will start to feed animals for specific functional food characteristics. Labelling of origin and other functional characteristics will be more important in all markets in the future. † Gerald Klassen analyzes cattle and hog markets in Winnipeg and also maintains an interest in the family feedlot in southern Alberta. For comments or speaking engagements, he can be reached at gklassen7@hotmail.com or call 204 899 8268.

Peak Dot Ranch Ltd.

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SAV 004 Predominant 4438 X Peak Dot Volt 950U BW: +3.1 WW: +51 YW: +90 M: +21 BW: 78 205 WT: 778

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Vision Unanimous 1418 X SAV Eliminator 9105 BW: +3.0 WW: +70 YW: +127 M: +22 BW: 84 205 WT: 840

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Vision Unanimous 1418 X SAV Bullet 0473 BW: +2.5 WW: +65 YW: +116 M: +27 BW: 84 205 WT: 835

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Vision Unanimous 1418 X SAV Eliminator 9105 BW: +3.0 WW: +70 YW: +122 M: +23 BW: 70 205 WT: 797

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Peak Dot Eliminator 165B

SAV Eliminator 9105 X SAV 004 Predominant 4438 BW: +4.5 WW: +69 YW: +120 M: +26 BW: 89 205 WT: 961

Peak Dot Predominant 1045A

SAV 004 Predominant 4438 X Peak Dot Hobson 459T BW: +4.2 WW: +50 YW: +85 M: +16 BW: 82 205 WT: 725

Peak Dot Unanimous 751B

Vision Unanimous 1418 X SAV Eliminator 9105 BW: +3.0 WW: +70 YW: +127 M: +22 BW: 83 205 WT: 877

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Vision Unamimous 1418 X SAV 004 Predominant 4438 BW: +2.0 WW: +66 YW: +117 M: +25 BW: 89 205 WT: 910

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View Sale Book and Sale Cattle Photo Gallery at www.peakdotranch.com or phone Carson Moneo 306-266-4414 Clay Moneo 306-266-4411 Email:peakdot@gmail.com

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/ grainews.ca MARCH 17, 2015

Cattleman’s Corner keepers and culls

Same standards apply to all sectors

I

can’t talk much about the situation across Canada, but I certainly get the impression poultry producers in Alberta are doing their best to produce meat birds and eggs to deliver a highquality product raised with the best production practices possible.

Poultry operations don’t have a big fit with Cattleman’s Corner, but looking around the livestock industry at poultry, dairy and hogs as well as beef enforces the fact that all these sectors are on the same track — aiming to produce a high-quality product, looking to improve production practices, making a sincere effort to enhance animal welfare, and tuned in to the need for increased consumer awareness of how food is produced.

Egg-laying operations are a good example. Egg producers have come under fire in recent years, not about producing a quality product — the national Get Cracking program does a good job of promoting quality — but over humane production practices. The old battery cage system, with birds cheek to jowl during their oneyear production cycle isn’t a good system. Birds are produced within Code of Practice guidelines, but now the guidelines are changing.

Two operations I visited were the New York Hutterite Colony near Coaldale, Alta. just east of Lethbridge and the Riverbend Hutterite Colony, at Mossleigh, about half way between Calgary and Lethbridge. Both of these operations had switched from the

Walter Decker with the Riverbend Colony with one of the laying hens in their enriched housing system. conventional battery cage system to what is called the furnished housing production system.

In fact New York Colony poultry manager Levi Hofer last year accepted on behalf of the colony the first Canadian Poultry Sustainability Award for both the table egg industry and the overall poultry industry. That award recognizes not only an improved housing system, but exceptional standards for the overall egg production system — quality eggs, healthy birds, and sound environmental and sustainability practices for the farm itself.

In the conventional battery system, usually about five birds are confined to a relatively small cage for their production cycle. With enriched or furnished housing a larger number of birds are confined in a much larger cage area with

more amenities that support more natural behavior.

At the New York Colony, for example, the conventional system was designed so each bird had 67 square inches of space, where as in the new furnished housing system each bird has 122 square inches of space. With about 20 birds in each of these larger areas, they also have access to features such as nesting boxes, perches, scratch pads and dust baths. They are still confined, but if your sole purpose in a day is to lay an egg it is a much better environment.

There are still plenty of the conventional battery cage systems operating, but the poultry industry has policies which are phasing those out — any farm planning to build or remodel has to move to either the enriched or furnished, or free-run or free-range systems. The Riverbend Colony egg operation, managed by Walter Decker, rebuilt its barn around the enriched housing system and operate it with exceptional standards as well.

These changes cost money, but at the same time if you’re planning to stay in business in any aspect of livestock production you have to be hitting on all cylinders — producing a high quality product, with humane yet practical production practices, while practicing good environmental stewardship. It is just reality and it is the right thing to do. † Lee Hart is editor of Cattleman’s Corner based in Calgary. Contact him at 403-592-1964 or by email at lee@fbcpublishing.com.

FARM MANAGEMENT

“Sustainability” in all its forms Industry sustainability is built one farm at a time, anticipating and being prepared for change

BY SEAN MCGRATH

T

he “S” word (sustainability) has been in popular use for several years among industry and developers and it has recently undergone a major surge of interest in the beef industry. Sustainability really reflects the long-term viability of the industry in terms of the three pillars of the environment, economics and social demands.

It would be fair to say that the most common use of the word “sustainable” refers to the environmental impact associated with farming and ranching.

After all, we live on a finite planet and short of sending cows to the moon, we are constrained by Mother Nature and how well we take care of her. This is also the area that gets most of the focus in the news, either positively or negatively and is associated with the majority of funding programs (eg.: Growing Forward 2), regulations and penalties.

The environmental component of sustainability really looks at whether our practices can be continued within the bounds of nature for the indefinite future.

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL ASPECTS

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FROM COWS LIKE THIS

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I think that most producers who are still in the business after the last decade can also appreciate the economic aspects of sustainability. While there are a lot of ways to measure productivity and success, at some point the economics of beef production boil down to the ability to make a living, but also to attract and retain capital in the industry and generate enthusiasm and renewal. The exodus of producers over time clearly represents an easily understandable challenge to the sustained ability of the industry to generate net incomes that support generational turnover.

Also important is the transfer of billions of dollars worth of assets to upcoming generations.

Social aspects of sustainability are also a huge consideration. There are several intertwining levels, including both public awareness and engagement with agriculture and the implications thereof, the level of influence a declining number of voters in the industry have, the overall social licence to apply technologies to the industry and how we approach those issues and emerging social media. There are also household-level social issues, which include an aging producer population and challenges of farm succession.

FACE THE FACTS Sustainability is a vastly complex issue for our industry to grapple with, however it is also vital that we do not shirk the responsibility of addressing it. What I find particularly interesting is the overall sustainability of the industry is built one operation at a time. The importance of understanding and identifying what sustainability means in your own operation is vital if we are to participate in the discussion rather than just protecting the status quo.

Because sustainability deals with the long-term future, we need to think long term and plan for unforeseen future risk and events. Building flexibility and ensuring resilience in our decision-making processes is very important to consider. Sometimes this may come at the expense of immediate profit but creates a longer-term profit potential.

It also means as we discuss the issues as an industry we need to focus on process and outcomes rather than rigid rules for how to achieve “sustainability goals”.

It is pretty tough to measure sustainability when it is by definition a forward and not a rear-view mirror goal. In other words, we can look back and see if things have gotten better or worse, but at any point in time, sustainable is a future term. For this reason it is important to measure trends and monitor how things are changing. In a lot of ways it is easier to see if we are missing the mark, than if we are achieving it.

It is really important to consider the issues around sustainability on a personal and business level since we will be intimately involved in the discussion. It is also important to keep the discussion somewhat grounded in measurable, repeatable results.

Using good science is a key.

We cannot expect to productively engage in a broad industry-wide discussion without giving forethought to the topic, and certainly without engaging many of the solutions proposed and imposed in the name of sustainability are going to be unsustainable. We need to objectively identify positive progress and rapidly correct negatives. Active demonstration of our commitment to the future of feeding people is one of the best ways we can ensure that we have a long-term future. † Sean McGrath is a rancher and consultant from Vermilion, Alta. He can be reached at sean@ranchingsystems.com or (780)853-9673. For additional information visit www.ranchingsystems.com

MARCH 17, 2015 grainews.ca /

The Dairy Corner

Replacement dairy heifers need good nutrition PETER VITTI

M

any weaned dairy heifers have gone from eating highquality milk replacer and calf starter in a nice cozy calf barn to being kicked outside in the arctic weather and being fed leftovers from the lactating cows. It’s a shame that many replacement heifers are fed in this way and thus fail to reach their full potential as milk cows. In contrast, dairy heifers that are raised on a good nutrition program that promotes steady good growth have a better chance at making good milk and good profit.

Such economic success is really the result of implementing a good heifer feeding program from three to 24 months of age in replacement dairy heifers. This program is based upon three timeless, yet simple targets: 1. Reach 540 to 600 kg at 22-24 months of age at first calving and enter the milk line.

2. Reach 380 to 430 kg at 13.515 months of age, show strong heats and be ready for first breeding.

3. Allow for 800 g of gain per day after they reach puberty until calving.

To attain steady growth, many universities around the world have collectively advised young replacement dairy heifers should consume a palatable diet designed with an energy level of about 65-69 per cent TDN. Some more definitive extension references dictate a dietary metabolizable energy of 2.3 Mcal/kg, diet.

These research and field trial energy values are usually based upon above-freezing temperatures, when little, if any significant metabolic energy is used to keep heifers, warm.

FACTOR IN THE COLD In order to make Canadian cold-weather energy adjustments, we should use the guideline of: for every 1 C drop in temperature below 0 C, most cattle TDN energy maintenance requirements increase by about two per cent.

That means we should increase the above heifer energy requirements in their diet by 40 to 50 per cent when they are braving -20 to -25 C temperatures (with windchill) in an outside pen.

Unlike dietary energy, protein levels in the same heifer rations are not affected by winter conditions. We often recommend that three- to six-month old animals need a diet of about 16 to 18 per cent protein, while older animals

from six months to breeding age need a 15 to 16 per cent diet.

When dairy heifers are bred at 14 to 15 months of age, these protein levels can be dropped to 13 to 14 per cent. About three weeks before replacement heifers calve, one should implement a well-balanced 16 to 17 per cent protein transition diet with a similar modest energy level.

HOW THEY ARE FED MATTERS TOO No matter what diet is being fed to dairy heifers, it is just as critical as to how diets are fed. Here is an outline of some good rules of dairy heifer bunk management: • Segregate heifers according to weight and size. The key is to avoid feeding small younger animals with older heavier animals.

Bred heifers should be segregated from un-bred ones. As pregnant heifers get closer (re: three weeks before) to calving, they need their own pen and own specialized “transition” ration.

• Check outside feed bunks before the next feeding. If a wintertime bunk is licked clean, it might be good sign to feed more heifer diet, so all energy requirements are met during cold weather. Reduce the amount fed if one has lots of feed refusal.

• Check on your heifers. By nature, they will have a social pecking order. You should be aware of animals that don’t come to the feed bunk. It is important to provide enough initial bunk space and then more eating area when they get older.

• Provide appropriate shelter and windbreaks. Replacement heifers should be able to get out of the direct wind at all times.

Wherever windchill is decreased by 5 C, 10 per cent is saved in additional dietary energy spent on keeping heifers warm. Extra clean bedding should be put down on a frequent basis adding insulation against the cold ground.

• Scrape the pens. In abovemelting weather, occasionally clean the concrete pad adjacent to the feed bunk. It doesn’t make sense that heifers should be forced to stand in mud, melted water and manure as they are eating.

Feeding and management of dairy replacement heifers should be relatively simple. They have their own brand of nutrient requirements, so they should have their own designated feeding program. Raising them outside in this way should return them to the dairy barn as promising first-calf cows. Given the appropriate milking cow nutrition should turn them into good mature dairy cows for many lactations to come. † Peter Vitti is an independent livestock nutritionist and consultant based in Winnipeg.

To reach him call 204-254-7497 or by email at vitti@mts.net.

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Members of the Prime Limousin Club will be there to answer all your questions and educate everyone on the unique qualities of their favourite breed.

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spotlight a variety of beef operations—everything

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For more information Visit farmandranchshow.com Join the conversation

2015 Prospect Steer & Heifer Show

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March 26-28

Edmonton EXPO Centre

39

40

/ grainews.ca MARCH 17, 2015

Cattleman’s Corner The Markets

Consumer demand will rebound Cattle prices still holding as industry moves into expansion phase pounds sold for $264, which is up $10 to $15 from a month earlier. Major feeding operations appear to be stepping forward more aggressively for replacement cattle given the build up in equity over the past year. Feeding margins for the summer are now hovering near breakeven given the price of feeder cattle and projected fed cattle prices.

Jerry Klassen Market Update

F

ed cattle prices in Alberta continue to trade between $183 to $185 as the Canadian dollar remains near six-year lows. U.S. beef production appears to be exceeding earlier projections; however, retail and restaurant demand have not slowed as much as expected during the first two months of 2015 and wholesale beef prices are holding value.

Feedlot margins continue to hover in positive territory and it appears barley stocks are not as tight as earlier anticipated.

Therefore, feeder cattle prices have been percolating higher throughout February, which is somewhat surprising given the weaker live cattle futures for the late spring and summer timeframe.

In central Alberta, largerframe exotic steers weighing 800

U.S. MEAT SUPPLIES BUILDING The USDA projected first-quarter beef production to reach 5.9 billion pounds, which is up by 225 million pounds from their January estimate. Earlier in fall, beef production for 2015 was expected to be sharply below 2014, but we now find production levels either exceeding or similar to year-ago levels for each quarter. Beef supplies are not as tight as earlier anticipated.

Secondly, pork production is now forecasted to reach 24.1 billion pounds during 2015, up nearly 1.3 billion pounds from 2014.

We see a building of U.S. red meat supplies, which could temper Canadian exports of fed cattle and processed beef.

As of early February, Canadian beef production was 107,000 mt, down two per cent from yearago levels while the slaughter is running six per cent under last year. Cattle-on-feed inventories in Alberta and Saskatchewan have been running nine per cent below 2014 so the lower slaughter pace will likely continue into the summer. Lower onfeed numbers have resulted in lower exports of fed cattle to the U.S. Official data for the month of January had slaughter cattle exports at a meagre 16,400 head, down 51 per cent in comparison to January of 2014.

U.S. choice beef prices were reported at 238/cwt in mid-February, down from the November 2014 highs of $256/cwt. U.S. economic data continues to show positive signals with ongoing job growth and higher wages.

The slowdown in restaurant traffic was not as large as anticipated

during the first six weeks of 2015, despite adverse weather along the U.S. Eastern Seaboard.

However, the seasonal decline in demand has taken a toll given the lower wholesale beef prices.

DEMAND EXPECTED TO INCREASE Looking forward, demand will improve later in March and April, which is bound to be supportive for wholesale beef and fed cattle prices. During 2014, fed cattle prices moved in a counter-seasonal pattern strengthening from May through July. For 2015, the market will probably return to the normal pattern with softer values during the late spring and summer. The market has accounted for current supply situation trading near historical highs. Last year, the market experienced a sharp year-over-year decline in secondquarter beef production and had to ration demand accordingly.

Feeder cattle prices have strengthened in the late winter

but are poised to consolidate moving forward. If fed cattle prices soften during May through July, feeding margins will start to move into negative territory, which will stem buying enthusiasm. The recent Statistics Canada Dec. 31 stocks report showed a sharp decline in domestic feed usage and barley supplies are not as tight as earlier anticipated.

While the trend is your friend in the feeder cattle market, I think backgrounding operators and cow-calf producers have to be cautious from May forward. The U.S. and Canadian cattle herds are in the expansion phase. Looking at past patterns, producers can count on the expansion phase lasting two to three years even if feeder cattle prices come off the highs.

I don’t feel the market will fall apart but we may see a softer tone later in summer. † Gerald Klassen analyzes cattle and hog markets in Winnipeg and also maintains an interest in the family feedlot in southern Alberta. For comments or speaking engagements, he can be reached at gklassen7@hotmail.com or call 204 899 8268.

TIPS FOR NEW BREEDERS

Market good bulls with sincerity stan harder

S

elling one’s annual calf crop is a relatively painless marketing process for commercial cattle producers.

Purebred selling strategies however need to be substantially more complex, since individual customers seldom buy more than a small percentage of a farm’s annual cattle production, particularly bulls.

I don’t presume to instruct breeders in the art of selling, particularly those well-established ranchers who have a consistently effective client base established over generations or an individual lifetime. But I have considerable empathy for new breeders anxious to move forward and create their own niche in what can be a richly rewarding segment of the beef industry, and this is the direction of my thoughts in this article.

Anyone grandly assuming their obviously superior cattle will “sell themselves” is embarked on a business plan guaranteeing disappointment. The day a half ton skids to a screeching halt on the gravel and wheels into a rancher’s yard with its driver demanding the right to pay $5,000 for that bull calf he just saw in the field is a long way down the road.

Each farm and each herd is unique but there are a number of marketing basics common to all purebred enterprises that might benefit the budding seedstock supplier.

BE MOTIVATED The most essential element, absolutely, has to be ambition.

You really need to want to do this above all else. Everything

beyond that can be learned, adjusted or adapted.

We have encouraged aspiring young ranchers to go with a breed they admire rather than one that might be seen as being generally popular. Yes, buyers need to be interested, but seedstock marketers need to be actively engaged in a sales presentation and come across as truthful, credible and trustworthy and genuinely believe in your product.

The single most effective sales pitch is enthusiasm rooted in conviction. Insincerity and lack of assurance are difficult to conceal and customers will withdraw immediately if these factors become evident.

MARKETING OPTIONS Once the beginning breeder has stock to sell the question of a marketing venue becomes paramount.

There are only two practical avenues available — public auction sales or private treaty.

Learning the auction process, first, is an indispensable step toward the ultimate goal of “off the farm” sales, or if things go exceptionally well and the owner is so inclined, home auctions.

Good, bad or indifferent, the auction ring does supply marketing experience as well as provide product exposure and thus begins the long and often-difficult journey to name recognition and buyer acceptance.

If you are new to the public auction system, expectation that the sales management team will do all the promotional work and sell your bulls for big dollars without any heavy lifting from you is a false hope that should be

dismissed as soon as it is born.

Certainly the catalogues, advertising and hands-on activity will be handled by professional management, but to presume that your obligation to help sell your cattle has been discharged by payment of participation fees can result in serious disappointment.

PRODUCE A GOOD PRODUCT Your foremost responsibility is to give the auctioneering firm a quality product to sell. Don’t play it too close to the vest because you are afraid of risk. And for heaven’s sake don’t be seduced by the argument that if the sale goes well you can always bring better bulls next year. Bringing anything except your top end to a select sale is likely the kiss of death for your expectations and indeed your hopes.

Give sale management an animal that is quiet, clean, clipped, brushed, leads well on a new halter and is free of skin diseases, warts and parasites. When a bull enters the ring it should look healthy, well cared for (in our experience about a 3.5 condition score) and move easily in the ring.

KNOCK ON DOORS Every consignor should be out actively recruiting buyers.

Potential customers should be canvassed and invited to attend.

Classified ads as well as human interest press and radio articles all add to sale momentum.

Exposure at local expositions is an invaluable source of contacts and future sales.

Having done all that is reasonably possible for your entries, the

dicey part now is deciding what price might be acceptable to both buyer and seller, the so-called free market price. This is a reading taken from other comparable sales reflecting a host of conditions that influence market values.

Generally speaking bids given and taken are straightforward. But if there is only one active bidder the most common technique used to “run up” a buyer is likely to be variations of the phantom bid “from the rafters.” The ring men are given a figure below which a seller will not be content. It is then incumbent upon this ring man to hoist invisible bidders to use as a lever to advance bids from the legitimate buyer, a technique handled with admirable skill by experienced practitioners.

RECRUIT SOME HELP A somewhat more sophisticated version is to have a “plant,” someone in cahoots with the consignor who is directed to openly support the bidding up to a previously agreed range but who clearly has no intention of buying for his own account or anyone else’s. This is simply known as “driving up the price.” Failure to draw a genuine bidder up to the desired amount results in the bull going back to the consignor as a “no sale.”

A “sight unseen” or “order buy” is a huge advantage to sellers.

Since the sales management team has been entrusted with the selection of the animal there is considerable latitude for them as to which bull is finally chosen as the favoured beast, the sale likely having a number of bulls meeting that buyer’s specific criterion.

In the meantime this back-pocket

order can successfully be used as a legitimate advancing bid numbers of times without actually filling the original requisition. The fact that a buyer may not be present in no way detracts from the validity of his or her bid.

WEATHER FACTOR Weather tends to be the largest single influence on a livestock sale. To ask producers to commit inventory for open bids when travel is possible for only a few buyers would be neither fair nor just.

Even on a normal sale day there is risk of an unprotected animal selling for less at public auction than the asking price off the yard.

This would be calamitous for future private sales and indeed for deals already consummated. Customers could argue that the “free market” established a lower price for your bulls than they had paid and that is what they are worth and no more.

Why should a buyer pay a higher price off the farm if the seller was clearly prepared to sell the same product for less at public auction ?

Then there is the matter of principle. Some breeders (ourselves included) refuse to sell a breeding bull at below the cost of production, a very real possibility in a poor auction.

For beginning purebred ranchers, public auctions are an essential first step in the business of becoming established as a seed stock producer.

Auctions have both up and downside potential. The level of involvement by the consignor can be the fulcrum between the two. † Stan Harder is a retired Angus breeder in Alberta now living in south-central B.C. You can email him at: pmedowra@gmail.com

MARCH 17, 2015 grainews.ca /

41

Home Quarter Farm Life

Raising livestock — naturally Couple wants their animals to be in environment that best suits their needs

BY CHRISTALEE FROESE

R

anching is in Jeff B o v e e ’s b l o o d . H i s great-grandfather was legendary large-scale rancher John Minor from the Abbey, Sask. area. And while Bovee is following in the footsteps of his ancestors, he’s seeking to do it in a radically different fashion.

Jeff’s wife Sabrina is a registered dietitian so they are raising their livestock on a small scale with attention to every morsel the animals eat and every substance that enters their livestock’s bodies.

“Whether it’s our beef, pigs, chickens, turkeys, ducks or geese, we’re raising each animal on pasture, so everything is grass fed and grass finished,” said Jeff.

The Bovees are not interested in large-scale farming to make a living, but rather on establishing a small-scale operation that produces nutritionally superior meats. They chose the name Primal Pastures for their farm to reflect the philosophy of raising food in as natural of a setting as possible “Our No. 1 goal in raising our livestock is to match each species of animal with a pasture environment which best fits their physical and mental attributes, rather than fitting them into a more controlled farm plan.”

Jeff, 32, and Sabrina, 31, both work off farm to support their desire to produce antibiotic- and hormone-free animals that have the opportunity to live in freerange settings. The focus is on producing more nutritional cuts of meat that are high in omega-3 fatty acids and low in less-healthy omega-6 and -9 fatty acids.

“Our cattle are strictly grass fed which gives them a nutritional profile that is superior to grain-fed cattle,” said Sabrina, a full-time nutritionist with the Regina Qu’Appelle Health Region. “Our goal is simply to raise the kind of meat that we would want to eat ourselves,” she said.

Jeff, whose full-time job is as a geologist, explained that his lifelong passion has been to raise livestock in a way that is as close to what the animals would experience in nature as possible. “The idea is that the meat we raise has all the health benefits of an allnatural wild animal, so we’ll raise our ducks on a creek, pigs in the forest and cattle on the grass,” he said.

The Bovees found the ideal setting for their dream farm in 2010 when they bought 320 acres of land in the Red Fox Valley located 16 kms south of Indian Head, Sask. The former cattle operation consisted of pasture land, wooded areas, a creek and numerous large corrals overgrown with grass. This setting has provided the perfect home for their heritage breeds of pigs, geese, ducks, chickens and cattle that forage on the rich nutrients left from the feedlot setting.

“We plan to plant a number of apple trees in the wooded area reserved for the pigs so they can eat apples in August and September and small groups of ducks and geese will be on the creek this summer where they can take advantage of the marshland buffet,” said Jeff.

While the Bovee farm is not yet a certified organic operation, their livestock is hormone and antibiotic free and their animals are raised following organic ide-

The Bovees found the ideal setting for their dream farm in 2010 when they bought 320 acres of land in the Red Fox Valley located 16 kms south of Indian Head, Sask. als of an all-natural diet in a noncrowded setting.

“I’ve always wanted to do this since I was little and now that we have a farm, we want to live that beautiful way of life where a farmer can supply their local people with the food they’ve raised,” said Jeff.

The Bovees currently sell a wide variety of meats and cuts from their farm gate with the largest segment of their clientele coming from within a 100-kilometre radius. They depend on word of mouth to market their products which has resulted in more demand than supply. They charge a premium price for their naturally raised meats, finding that their customers are willing to pay $4, $5 and $6 a pound for their products.

“Right now we’re just getting our feet wet and seeing if it might be feasible for us to live out this dream and raise animals closer to the way they would live in the wild.” †

photo: christalee froese

Jeff and Sabrina Bovee want their animals to live in as natural a setting as possible.

LOVE HEARING FROM YOU Do you have a story about a farm or home-based business? How about some household management tips? Does someone in the family have a special-diet need? Share some of your meal ideas.

SEND THEM TO FARMLIFE 1666 Dublin Ave., Winnipeg, Man. R3H 0H1 Phone 1-800-665-0502 Email susan@fbcpublishing.com

Christalee Froese writes from Montmartre, Saskatchewan.

Please remember we can no longer return photos or material. – Sue

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42

/ grainews.ca MARCH 17, 2015

Home Quarter Farm Life PRAIRIE PALATE

All about wheat Whether it’s called spelt, farro or kamut — it’s still wheat And, almost 2,000 years later, it was the wheat that settled the plains of Western Canada. Today, bread wheat accounts for 90 per cent of the world’s wheat crop, while durum is about five per cent. Einkorn and emmer (also known in Italian as farro) are still grown in small quantities around the world.

I often see spelt, farro and kamut referred to as “ancient grains” as if they are special cases, but no matter how ancient, they are all wheat.

As you might guess, I am fascinated by the story of wheat, so much so that next month I’m heading to Greece, Turkey and Ukraine to dig into the cultural, political and edible history of wheat. Someday, I hope to write a book on the matter. It seems like a natural follow to my first two books: Prairie Feast, a culinary journey into the agricultural heartland of Canada, and Out of Old Saskatchewan Kitchens, a look at Saskatchewan’s early history through the lens of food and the recipes that fuelled the pioneer dream.

When Grainews editor Leeann Minogue asked me to write a regular food column for this paper, I jumped at the opportunity. Who better to appreciate the fruits of this land than the farmers who put their hearts and souls into the venture?

Amy Jo Ehman

Y

ou could say wheat is the reason I’m writing this today. Because of wheat, my ancestors came to farm in Western Canada, as did most of the settlers on the great plains.

By 1906, one year after it became a province, Saskatchewan was calling itself the Breadbasket of the World. In 1928, Canada produced close to 40 per cent of the world’s wheat supply.

Before packing up and moving to Canada, my forefathers were wheat farmers in Russia, near the Black Sea in what is now Ukraine.

Wheat was grown in Ukraine at least 2,500 years ago when it was a breadbasket of ancient Greece.

The north shore of the Black Sea is dotted with the ruins of Greek colonies established for the procurement and shipping of wheat.

Like my ancestors, I grew up surrounded by wheat fields, albeit on a new continent, yet I knew nothing of the ancestry of this illustrious grain. So, here’s a quick genealogy of wheat: wild wheat called einkorn crossed with goat-

photo: amy jo ehman

Wheat salad grass to create a hybrid wheat called emmer. This happened in the fertile valleys of Mesopotamia, in what is now Iraq and Syria.

Over time, as farmers grew emmer century after century, new varieties evolved such as durum, Polish and Khorasan (also known today as kamut). They are descendants on one side of the wheat family tree. At some point, emmer crossed with another goatgrass to create the other side of the family tree — bread wheat.

The origin of spelt is a bit foggy; some think it’s a hybrid of emmer

and goatgrass (a precursor to bread wheat) and some think it’s a descendant of emmer and bread wheat. Either way, spelt and bread wheat are close cousins.

While exact dates are sketchy, it is generally accepted that farmers began cultivating einkorn and emmer in the Middle East about 10,000 years ago. By the time the Greeks settled on the Black Sea, bread wheat was the famous member of the family. It helped fund the monuments of the pharaohs and fed the powerhouse of ancient Rome.

So, let’s start with a recipe for wheat. Whether you use spelt, farro, kamut or wheat from your own granary, it’s a healthy tribute to this ancient grain.

WHEAT SALAD 1 cup wheat seeds (also called wheat berries) 1/3 cup dried Prairie cherries OR cranberries 3 tbsp. vegetable OR olive oil 2 cups kale, chopped 1/2 cup pecans, chopped 1 apple, diced 3 spring onions, finely chopped 2 tbsp. apple cider vinegar Salt to taste Spread wheat on baking sheet and toast in 375 F oven for 10 minutes, until brown and fragrant. Tip wheat into pot, cover with plenty of water, add a dash of salt and boil until soft, about 1 hour. Near the end of cooking, add dried cherries or cranberries and cook a few minutes to plump them. Drain wheat and, while still warm, stir in vegetable or olive oil. Cool. Before serving, add kale and mix vigorously until the kale is tender. Stir in the remaining ingredients. † Amy Jo Ehman is the author of Prairie Feast: A Writer’s Journey Home for Dinner, and, Out of Old Saskatchewan Kitchens. She hails from Craik, Saskatchewan.

EXTENDED OUTLOOK FOR THE PRAIRIES Weather Forecast for the period of March 22 to April 18, 2015

Southern Alberta

Peace River Region March 22 - 28 Temperatures vary through the thaw/freeze cycle. Fair apart from rain or snow on 2 or 3 days, chance of heavy in places.

March 22 - 28 Temperatures vary through the thaw/freeze cycle. Fair apart from rain or snow on 2 or 3 days, chance of heavy in places.

March 29 - April 4 Generally sunny and seasonal to cool. Expect a few days with a mix of sun and cloud or overcast skies, along with snowy conditions.

April 5 - 11 Changeable weather as mild, fair days interchange with cooler, wet ones. Heavier snow in a few regions. Gusty.

April 12 - 18 Highs in the teens most days under sunshine, but cooler windy intrusions bring some rain and a chance of snow on 2 or 3 days.

April 12 - 18 Fluctuating temperatures with some highs near 20 in the southwest. On cooler, windy days expect some rain and a chance of snow.

Manitoba March 22 - 28 Mild, blustery, thawing. Some rain or snow on 2 or 3 days. A weather system threatens heavy precipitation.

March 29 - April 4 Thaw/freeze cycle and often windy. Fair, but expect rain or heavier snow on a couple of days this week.

April 5 - 11 Weather conditions and temperatures vary as mild, sunny days alternate with rain or snow, chance of heavy in places.

April 12 - 18 Mild and sunny days are followed by cooler, wet days. Windy at times. Frosty nights. Periodic heavier snow in the north.

Precipitation Forecast -7 / 5 Edmonton 22.1 mms

-5 / 7 Jasper

21.2 mms

-6 / 6

32.4 mms

BELOW NORMAL Banff -5 / 7

Calgary

Forecasts should be 80% accurate, but expect variations by a day or two because of changeable speed of weather systems.

March 29 - April 4 Unsettled on a few days as sunshine alternates with rain or snow. Variable temperatures.

At times windy.

April 5 - 11 Generally sunny but with scattered rain on a couple of days. Chance of heavier snow in a few areas. Windy.

April 12 - 18 Fluctuating temperatures. On cooler, windy days expect some rain and occasional scattered snowfall.

19.8 mms

March 22 - 28 Fair with thawing, but a couple of cooler, frosty, windy days bring rain or heavy snow.

March 29 - April 4 Sunny and seasonal to mild, but on cooler, windy days expect rain or locally heavy snow.

April 5 - 11 Generally sunny but with scattered rain on a couple of days. Chance of heavier snow. Windy.

-8 / 4 Grande Prairie

Saskatchewan

25.1 mms

NEAR NORMAL

-7 / 4 North Battleford -7 / 5 Red Deer 22.9 mms

-4 / 9 Medicine Hat 19mms cms Lethbridge 26.0 35.9 mms 26 cms -4 / 9

-11 / 1 The Pas

-10 / 3 Prince Albert

21.7 mms

-7 / 4 Saskatoon 19.7 mms

27.4 mms

22.2 mms

NEAR NORMAL

-8 / 3 Yorkton

-9 / 4 Dauphin

31.7 mms -10 / 2 -7 / 5 20.3 mms -4 / 5 Gimli Regina 39.2 mms -7 / 5 Moose Jaw 20.4 mms Swift 24.3 mms -7 / 5 -8 / 4 Current Portage -7 / 4 -6 / 5 Brandon 40.4 mms Winnipeg 24.7 mms Weyburn 35.4 mms 35.9 mms 28.9 mms -4 / 6 Estevan Melita -9 / 5 33.3 mms

33.5 mms

Precipitation Outlook For April Much Above Normal Below Much above normal normal below normal normal

Temperatures are normals for April 1st averaged over 30 years.

Precipitation (water equivalent) normals for April in mms. ©2015 WeatherTec Services www.weathertec.mb.ca

MARCH 17, 2015 grainews.ca /

43

Home Quarter Farm Life FROM THE FARM

Home remedies for a cold Debbie Chikousky

O

ur family has been blessed with the addition of two grandsons in the last eight months. Their arrival has also brought back the memories of helplessness when a baby gets a cold. Also how miserable it can be to be pregnant and have a cold.

There is very little that is safe and effective on the market to help these two groups of people. It is very important to be extra careful during these times and to always seek a health professional’s advice.

The one thing these two groups have in common is a low immune system. Young babies haven’t fully developed their own yet and depend on their mother’s colostrum/breast milk to help them out. The pregnant person has a suppressed immune system to protect her pregnancy, but this means she has to be extra diligent to keep up her own rest and diet.

The goal for our family has been to try and prevent the viruses. When my husband

drove a school bus we got every cold that went through the school. The most effective cleaner we found was white vinegar. Every day we took a cloth, wet it with white vinegar, and wiped every surface he touched when he came home. First was the doorknobs, then the light switches, then phone or computer mouse etc. When we dusted we added a bit to the dusting water. When we washed the floors, in it went. Another helpful hint was to wipe the steering wheel of all the vehicles including the school bus.

When prevention isn’t enough we have a few good home remedies that help. Last winter we all got a horrible virus, including one pregnant daughter-in-law who was on doctor-ordered bed rest and not allowed to cough.

This time the sinus congestion was dreadful which also fuelled a cough. There wasn’t much safe for her to use so we turned to food-based home remedies.

ONIONS FOR CONGESTION Chop one onion and place in a small bowl. Drizzle two tablespoons of honey over the chopped onion. Go to bed and place the bowl as close to

your head as possible (we put it in the headboard). It will allow you to breathe freely for the night and helped stop coughing that was the result of drainage. This is perfectly safe to use in baby’s room also.

Researching everyday items to find safe ingredients for home remedies has been educational.

It was a big surprise to find that although Parsley Tea is a fantastic item for an adult’s cold remedy, it is definitely not for pregnant or nursing moms. Scientists question the safety of very high amounts of parsley in pregnancy since the herb contains oils that are known to have effects on the uterus. As of 2011, it is unknown what the safe limit of parsley is for pregnant women, although levels normally found in food appear to be safe.

Less than one per cent of parsley leaf is the oil component, and it is the oil that contains the potentially dangerous substances myristicin and apiol.

These substances, in high quantities, can trigger contractions of the uterine muscle, which may produce premature labour and present a danger to both mother and child. Historically, the herb has been used to promote the onset of menstrua-

tion, which also involves uterine contractions.

Myristicin can also affect the baby by travelling across the placenta and into the baby’s body.

Once the chemical has gotten in, the substance can raise the rate of the baby’s heartbeats.

Parsley is available in various extract forms, such as the oil, the seeds and the juice, and these substances may be more risky than the natural leaf form.

Lavender essential oil also should be avoided. A study reported in a 2007 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine found that lavender oil is an endocrine disruptor, a compound that may interfere with hormone production or activity. Laboratory studies confirmed doctors’ observations, demonstrating that lavender oil inhibits the effects of androgen, the hormone that controls masculine characteristics, and mimics the actions of estrogen, the hormone responsible for feminine characteristics such as breast tissue growth. My own experience has been in females where when rubbed on the lower abdomen, it triggered a period at 21 days of the cycle. No study has been done showing the safe usage amount so it is best to not use it in salves for children and pregnant women.

A very potent and useful salve for household health is Garlic Salve. Rachel Weaver, master herbalist, claims that it is safe for the whole house and “kills candida, parasites, bacteria, and virus by direct application. In addition, it treats systemic infections by absorption through the skin into the blood supply and it travels throughout the body. After two weeks, make a new batch of Garlic Salve,” discarding whatever is left of the old one.

GARLIC SALVE Put in a blender: 1/3 cup coconut oil 2 tablespoons olive oil 8 cloves peeled garlic Blend at high speed until liquefied. Strain through a fine sieve to catch any pieces. Pour into a wide-mouth small jar and refrigerate. For babies it is best to use it on their feet.

With a bit of prevention, rest, and fluids, hopefully none of these remedies will ever have to be used. It would be an amazing blessing to get through spring calving with no colds this year! † Debbie Chikousky farms at Narcisse, Manitoba.

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44

/ grainews.ca MARCH 17, 2015

Home Quarter Farm Life SINGING GARDENER

And the 16 winners are…

Thanks to all who entered, plus, Ted makes a bonus draw for seven more ted meseyton

T

his morning I gave thanks for the light of a brand new day, thankful for life, for gifts and talents, thankful for strength, for food, for shelter and the joy of living. Even in a world of chaos there are many reasons to be grateful.

Let me express my deep appreciation and extend sincere thanks to my family of readers who join me on the Singing Gardener page and to each one who entered for a chance to win a package of heritage tomato seeds. Wow! A grand total of 381 individual entries was received at Grainews via Canada Post. They came from as far west as Vancouver Island, across the Prairies and stretched well into Ontario. Draws have taken place and an envelope of heritage tomato seeds has been mailed to 16 winners whose names appear further along.

Many of you provided comments and some of these are also included.

I had the good fortune to get some Latah tomato seeds, so I, Ted, decided to pick seven more names in what I call the “Lucky 7 Valentine’s Day draw.” A packet of Latah tomato seeds has been mailed out to each of the lucky seven. As well, let me express my appreciation to Heather and Belinda at Grainews for their assistance.

Also, look for a picture of George and Mary McKenzie from Brownvale, Alberta. Can I get everything on this page? Sounds like a tall order but I’m placing my bottom dollar on it.

photo: courtesy ted meseyton

Chris the Accordion Guy sets his mini accordion aside to select an entry from the draw box for a packet of heritage tomato seeds.

Winners’ names appear in this issue of Grainews.

HERITAGE TOMATO SEED WINNERS One tomato seed package of either Ferris Wheel, Flin Flon, Ganti, or Italian Heirloom has been mailed to the following persons whose names were drawn and appear below.

1. Darlene Poncelet, Tway, Sask. S0K 4K0* 2. Helen Bially, Tolstoi, Man. R0A 2E0* 3. Eleanor Seib, Rosetown, Sask. S0L 2V0* 4. Mary Kawulych, Westlock, Alta. T7P 2N9* 5. Margaret Arnett, Prince George, B.C. V2X 5T3 6. Pauline Yurkiw, Grandview, Man. R0L 0Y0 7. Isabel Freimark, Walsh, Alta. T0J 3L0 8. Jocelyne Cook, Redvers, Sask. S0C 2H0 9. Laura Hughes, Edmonton, Alta. T6A 1Z7 10. Violette Burant, Melville, Sask. S0A 2P0 11. Barbara A. Richards, Wooler, Ont. K0K 3M0 12. Lawrence & Donna Kawa, Choiceland, Sask. S0J 0M0 13. Joyce Nykipilo, Boyle, Alta. T0A 0M0 14. Wanda Sorensen, Ceylon, Sask. S0C 0T0* 15. Clarence Worona, Beausejour, Man. R0E 0C0*

16. Jennie Van Straalen, Coaldale, Alta. T1M 1M2* Note: An asterisk after a name* designates comments appear below.

From No. 1, Darlene writes: “Happy New Year Ted. I enjoy Grainews, even though we are not farmers, just gardeners. Very good information and tips on gardening.

I also enjoy flowers outside and houseplants. It’s like a jungle in our house. I don’t have email. No new technology in this house so I have to write. One comment. It would be nice if we had more recipes in Grainews, so I’m enclosing a very good recipe for perogy dough which was passed down. It’s called Aunty Polly’s Perogy Dough.”

Mix together: 1/4 cup oil 1 teaspoon salt 1-1/2 cups warm water Add: 4 cups flour Mix well and knead. Place dough in a bowl, pat lightly with oil and cover with saran wrap and let rest for 1/2 hour. Roll, cut out dough, place your favourite filling inside. This dough freezes very well. Tip: When making fruit perogies, mix fruit with some sugar and flour. Place filling on dough to form a perogy and boil. They will not open up when cooking.

Sorry, you might have to do some adjustments as I’m in a hurry to get to the paying job. P.S. Keep up the great work. Darlene.”

From No. 2, Helen writes inside a card: “To the Singing Gardener.

What a wonderful opportunity to send greetings to you and yours for prosperity, good health, much happiness and a good growing season for 2015. Your column is first for reading and learning. Thank God for you.”

From No. 3, Eleanor writes: “Singing Gardener: I enjoy your pages of interesting gardening information on many items, especially flowers, potatoes and tomatoes. Thank you for your knowledge in every issue of Grainews I receive. Enclosed is my name for a chance to win a packet of tomato seeds. Thank you for your services to Grainews.”

From No. 4, Mary writes: “Dear Ted: I enjoy the page in Grainews.

Lots of good information and helpful notes. I spend all my days in flower and vegetable garden.

I have about two acres of all this and nearing the 80 mark. I enjoy this work morning to evening. I also have 20 acres of saskatoons.”

From No. 14, Wanda writes: “Dear Ted, (fellow gardener): First page I read in Grainews — so interesting and educational. Love the folklore and all the garden hints.”

From No. 15, Clarence writes: “Hi Ted: I enjoy reading your articles every time. I tried the cough cure for sore throat with carrots and brown sugar. I added honey, cayenne pepper and a strong cough candy to dissolve. It works better than Buckley’s. I eat the carrot slices. I’m 66 years young and plant an acre for me and everyone who comes over. Only one problem, they only come during harvest when it’s ready! I’m cutting down to one-half an acre.”

(Ted says: Many gardeners, including myself can probably relate to what Clarence mentioned during harvest time. Reminds me of a song. Here are some of the words.)

“The seeds were sown by other hands than yours, Nurtured and cared for they grew, But those who have sown will not harvest them, The reaping will not be their care.

The harvest is plenty, labourers are few, Come with me into the fields.

Your arms may grow weary, your shoes will wear thin, Come with me into the fields.”

From No. 16, Jennie writes: “Dear Ted — I enjoy your column very much and it is the first thing I read when we get Grainews. I love gardening flowers, vegetables and fruits. I have my own greenhouse and grow most of my own plants.

In one of your columns you mentioned an orchid cactus. I had one for close to 30 years but it froze last winter. It would have 50 to 60 beautiful flowers twice a year.

I have another one started now from cuttings. I’ve been told it takes seven years to bloom. Don’t know if it’s true but mine took that long. Would you know of anywhere I could get Fantasy petunia seeds? The Picobella variety is just not the same. Keep up the gardening news. (signed) Jennie.”

(Gardeners: Here’s where you can help Jennie out if you know a source for Fantasy petunia.)

Really enjoy reading your very interesting and informative gardening page. Past couple of years have been growing heritage tomato seeds. Some are blue black in colour, to yellow, to orange, to pink, to reds. Just finishing the last few — keeping them in garage at fridge temp. Also keeping carrots, beets and potatoes in big plastic tubs layered with potting soil, then layer produce, then soil.

Keeps really well into next summer. Regards, Sheila.”

From No. 7. “Dear Ted, enjoy your page so much. Have been getting Grainews for about 35 years or whenever it started.

Keep up the good work. Have two amaryllis ready to bloom, -30 outside today (Feb. 4/15).

Olive L. Smith.”

Note from Ted: Congratulations Olive. ’Tis wonderful to learn that you are such a long-standing, faithful Grainews subscriber. Olive — That’s quite a record and I’m certain everyone at Grainews is very proud of you and thanks so much for your outstanding dedication to said publication.

LITTLE-KNOWN BRIDE-TO-BE TRADITIONS Anyone have a daughter getting married this summer? It may still be frosty outside in parts of the land but each brideto-be and her future husband are already making wedding plans.

What is not so well known are some traditions to share from earlier times.

Five longtime practices are listed below and one of them is false. Do you know which one? The answer is given at the end but don’t peek ahead of time. Here we go.

1. Egyptian women pinch the bride on her wedding day for luck.

2. According to Hindu tradition, it’s good luck for it to rain on your wedding day.

3. Swedish brides put a silver coin from their father and a gold one from their mother in each shoe.

4. Czechs throw pickles instead of rice at the bride and groom.

5. The mother of a Ukrainian bride places a few flaxseeds in each shoe of her daughter and/or the father of each groom does the same for his son, so the wedded couple will prosper, never go hungry and not be poor.

If you said No. 4 is false, you guessed correctly. Neither pickles nor rice is thrown. They actually throw peas. †

LUCKY 7 VALENTINE’S DAY LATAH TOMATO SEED WINNERS

photo: courtesy george mckenzie

Meet George and Mary McKenzie holding a cob of corn in one hand and tomatoes in the other. Mary always has a good garden, according to her husband. The Singing Gardener reflects with the following. The corn is as tall as my nephew Paul; the tomatoes are green as any I’ve seen.

1. Noreen Thielen via Marlene Charlesworth, Baynes Lake, B.C. V0B 1T4 2. Joyce Derow, Tomslake, B.C. V0C 2L0 3. Louise Bliss, Emo, Ont. P0W 1E0 4. Wes & Martha Cook, Moosehorn, Man. R0C 2E0 5. Claudette Pachal, Flin Flon, Man. R8A 0H5 6. Sheila Sharko, Calmar, Alta. T0C 0V0* 7. Olive L. Smith, Lintlaw, Sask. S0A 2H0* From No. 6, Sheila writes: “Ted,

This is Ted Meseyton the Singing Gardener and Grow-It Poet from Portage la Prairie, Man. When things go wrong as they sometimes will, when the road you’re trudging on seems uphill, when your funds are low and the debts up high, and you want to smile but instead you sigh, when cares are pressing you down a lot, rest for a while, and pray on the spot. My email address is singinggardener@mts.net.

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